Only tournament we have to follow this week....strange feeling lol
I think the Orange Bowl younger age group sections (Jessica Ren won the U12s last year) are over Christmas week....Laura Robson must be overwhelming favourite for the U14 title
Incontrast to last week we appear to have finished qualies and have a MD R1 published already.
Slabba has drawn 17 year old Russian, Evgeny Donskoy in R1, with a possible rematch with Destiny in R2 and a possible rematch with El Amrani in the quarter finals.
The good news in the doubles is that the top seeds, the all-Dutch combo of Antal van der Duim & Boy Westerhof, are out of the top half of the draw, beaten 7-5 4-6 [5-10] by the Nigerians, Idoko & Shehu! Van der Duim, the second seed in the singles, so in Slabba's half of the draw, clearly had a bad day: he lost 6-7(5) ret. to Richard Ruckelshausen! So no more appointments with Destiny for Slabba in either singles or doubles this year, since he lost to Babaloa in the first round & with Dairo to McGahon & Roy in the doubles!
The Nigerian, Shehu, had a good day: he's a WC in the singles & saw off the potential danger, Alain Ntamag, in straight sets, 4 & 2!
Great stuff Slabba. Donskoy was a tricky rd1 draw, he's 17, ranked 64 in juniors and made semis last week, losing a tight match to the eventual winner Westerhof
Next match should be reasonably comfortable, the guy is ranked 1100ish...only played about 5 tourneys this year, all in Nigeria and lost 3&4 to a guy in the 600s last week.
Whilst I'm delighted to see Slabba getting the reward for his commitment to play right to the end of the season, unless the points for Futures have changed he still has not officially cracked 500 or overtaken Childs. He has 46 points currently, with 6 to add on next Monday from the first Nigerian Future. This gives him 52, level on points with the players from 499+, but at 502 as he's played more tournaments. He has so far earned 1 point from this week, which will definitely place him in the top 500 with 53 points, but still below Childs. If he wins his second round match, this would give him 55 points and place him above Childs at 488 at least. This does not however take into acount other players around Slabba gaining (unlikely) or losing (possible) points.
Sorry to be pedantic about this but please let me know if I've got it wrong!