Ken Skupski (Gbr) bt Henrik Norfeldt (Swe) 6-4 6-3

Matthew Illingworth (Gbr) bt Fabio Colangelo (Ita) 6-3 6-3

Daniel Smethurst (Gbr) bt David Klier (Ger) 3-6 6-3 7-5

Gregoire Burquier (Fra) bt Simon Cauvard (Fra) 6-4 7-5

Olivier Charroin (Fra) bt Neil Bamford (Gbr) 6-1 6-1

Harsh Mankad (Ind) bt Sean Thornley (Gbr) 7-5 6-2

Yannick Mertens (Bel) bt Oscar Sabate-Bretos (Spa) 7-5 7-5

Alexander Flock (Ger) bt George Coupland (Gbr) 6-1 6-3,


3 winners - and a guaranteed Semi Finalist!!...Thats a stunning win from Smethurst (how old is he?)

-- Edited by seagull at 15:57, 2008-01-30

seagull wrote:

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Matthew Illingworth (Gbr) bt Fabio Colangelo (Ita) 6-3 6-3

Daniel Smethurst (Gbr) bt David Klier (Ger) 3-6 6-3 7-5

[...]

3 winners - and a guaranteed Semi Finalist!!...Thats a stunning win from Smethurst (how old is he?)

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Pretty impressive from Matt Illingworth, too!

Perhaps this story from the LTA site will answer your question about the third tennis Danny Boy, seagull  :

Smethurst wins top junior title in Czech Republic

Lancashire's Dan Smethurst won the 18 and under boys' singles title last week at the junior DHL Cup ITF Grade One tournament in Prerov, Czech Republic. The unseeded 17-year-old impressively won a number of close matches on his way to the final, in which he beat Russian Stanislav Vovk 5-7 6-3 6-1. In the opening five rounds, the right-hander beat Ukrainian Stanislav Poplavskyy 6-3 7-6(2), Serbian Dusan Lajovic 7-6(3) 3-6 7-6(6), Italian Enrico Fioravante 7-5 6-0, and Croatians, Marin Milan 6-3 7-6(4) and Marin Draganja 6-3 2-6 7-5.

In the doubles event, Smethurst teamed up with North Wales' Mathew James to reach the final before losing to Russians Stanislav Vovk and Evgeny Donskoy 1-6 6-7(3). In the semi-final, the British pair beat the number three seeds, Russian Alexey Golovachev and Ukrainian Oleksiy Zhornyak, 7-6(6) 6-3. Middlesex's Tom Knights also performed well in the singles event by reaching semi-final.

Paul Hutchins, LTA Head of Men's Tennis, said: "It was great that Dan [Smethurst] won an ITF Grade One tournament in the Czech Republic and rocketed his world ranking up considerably. We purposely encourage players to compete in ITF tournaments so that in their last year of the 18 and under age group they get a good enough world ranking to get into the junior Grand Slams. Hutchins continued: "Once into the junior Grand Slams on ranking, they can then play more Futures tournaments and try to bridge the gap before moving into the senior game at the end of the year. Tom [Knights] also did well reaching the singles semi-final as did Matt [James] and Dan [Smethurst] in reaching the doubles final. I'm really encouraged by the depth we have in this age group."

Fab from Smethurst !

I remember seeing something on Smethurst on Skysports and they billed him as one to watch, he was 16 at the time.

I've followed his results closely (Wrexham challanger last year was first result i saw) and always thought in time he'd be a good player!!!

WELL DONE MATE!!!

smethurst 4 the title ...
i say what a taleent fantastic result for the young nipper

unfortunately sean couldnt match dans superb effort
but no doubt he still looked as good as always.. on and off the court

if dan keeps this up i think he could potentially be the next matt lowe

Count Zero wrote:

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lol, what an interview its relevance to tennis about zero (if we werent reading it here)

I did not feel myself well like yesterday - surely he should keep that to himself
all of the blows included the law?? was Matt like judge dredd out there?
but I am you - tripping, man
available like always - the less said the better i think

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Once you know that diritto means forehand (in a tennis context) rather than the law and giocatore means player (i.e. not just in the 'gambler' sense), it all makes a bit more sense:

From Tipton (Great Britain), Fabio Colangelo talks about his latest match, which unfortunately he lost 6-3 6-3 against a local player

G. TO. : Hello Fabio, how did it go today (with M. Illingworth)?

F. C. : Hello, I did not feel good like yesterday, but until it got to 3-2 to me on serve, I was managing to stay in control ... at that point he played a big game and after that I didn't manage to play.

G. to. : This winter, you concentrated a lot on your forehand, have you noticed any improvement on your first trip to England? Did it work today?

F. C. : As far as my forehand is concerned, I'm satisfied, Relative to the first tournament (Sunderland, editor's note), it went a lot better here. Yesterday it was very good, today I played all my shots badly including the forehand, but it's not a disaster.

G. to. : What are you doing next?

F. C. : I am supposed to be playing a Future in Germany, but some problems have come up with the flights from here.

G. to. : Thanks Fabio, available as always.

F. C. : Thanks to you! It's always a pleasure.

Then again, the original translation was a bit more fun - I started to think Colangelo was Dylan from the Magic Roundabout.