Eeek, I can't believe I missed it by a day after waiting more than two years (been away and with what we do being seasonal, 20 hour days are the norm at the moment) but what brilliant news, I'll enjoy doing the GB top 25 year-end table even more now!

-- Edited by steven at 12:16, 2007-12-14

Sheddie wrote:

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 Slabba ...not so much focused on the top 500 now but on being top 350 come June

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Let's take our imaginations out for a wee (sorry, Wolf!) spin: today's result puts Alex at, provisionally, 490. The next 48 hours, though, could see another huge jump, as  semi-final and final victories would each net an extra 8 points! Winning F3 would lift Alex to 70 points and a World ranking of 430.
But just think if the magic continued through another week - and it did for Middelkoop recently; winning next week's F4 would add another 24 points (aren't $15K + Hospitality tournaments wonderful?), totalling 94 => 366th place, almost matching Sheddie's 'prediction'!
More realistically, though, if we look at the sources of the bulk of Alex's points, there's precious little to defend before mid-June (3 in January, 1 in March); the target spot of 350th place has been reached with 101 points at the moment, and one would imagine it wouldn't be very different by early summer. A win this week, a seeding's worth of 4 points next, and the loss of the 4 points mentioned above would leave Alex with a net 70 from 9 scoring tournaments, leaving 9 empty spots on his scoresheet. Seven quarter-finals and two semis (not too far-fetched given form over the last couple of months) in $15K events would garner 33 more points - hey presto, 103, and a top 350 spot - without even playing in Challengers!!

Thanks DJ, I love letting my imagination run wild.

The next step for Slabba is to start winning regularly in challengers, or at least start entering them more often and that'll make getting to the top 350 harder as the competition gets better but it'll also mean the 350 won't be the end of it and he'll continue further.

And - if we're really letting the imagination run wild - the smallest number of points you can get for WINNING a challenger is 50 points, so it would only take one tournament at the beginning of January and he's there!

Well Alex ran out of steam....welcome to the 500 club slabba.

kid wrote:

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Semifinals
Boy Westerhof (NED) d. Evgeny Donskoy (RUS) 6-7(5) 7-6(5) 6-1
(4)Reda El Amrani (MAR) d. (7)Alexander Slabinsky (GBR) 6-7() 6-3 6-1

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What a shame!   At least he more than justified his seeding!  What about the doubles final?  Was that played today?

do u think he knows?