Week 8 - Challenger ($85,000 + H) - Besançon, France

steven · Tennis legend

RE: Week 8 - Challenger ($85,000 + H) - Besançon, France

steven · Tennis legend

QR1: Richard Bloomfield WR 334 lost to George Bastl (SUI) WR 470 by 6-4 7-6 cry

... and what's worse, the two seeds in that section of the draw lost too! Juska beat no. 2 seed Greul 4 & 0, which is a bit crazy.

Of course, Bastl likes playing the big servers - a few years ago, he shocked Sampras at Wimby.

steven · Tennis legend

QR1: Alex Slabinsky (GBR) WR 406 lost to (q3) Oleksandr Dolgopolov Jr (UKR) WR 220 by 7-6 6-7 6-2 cry

Not a bad effort though, given that he's not used to playing at this level.

johnnylad · Tennis legend

Slabba always seems to get a set! Hopefully soon, he'll always seem to get two sets!

wolf · Tennis legend

Boggo faces wild card Jeremy Chardy in R1. Scheduled to meet 2nd seed Marc Giquel in R2.

steven · Tennis legend

That's not a bad draw in a Challenger as tough as that. Of course, he does have Ancic in his quarter!

imoen · Admin: Moderator+Tennis Legend

yeah, but Ancic is going to be exhausted from his antics this week, and throughly disheartened given his double bagel drubbing against the last brit he faced

seroiusly though, not a bad draw for Boggo at all, hopefully he can ease past Chardy and Gicquel is beatable.

Nathaliia · Lower Club Player

Hey, my friend reports from this challenger for my website (it's a new site btw, some of you probably spotted it on MTF :P). I am not an active user of this board, but I don't mean to spam ;) - she wrote a bit on Slabba's match or rather, she more focused on Dolgopolov. Kisses,
Nathii

www.tennisalternative.com

steven · Tennis legend

I can recommend this, I came across it the other day and there's some interesting stuff on it. It's a bit random what gets covered and what doesn't, but that's inevitable if they're trying to cover the whole Challenger tour - it's a cool thing to have been started and what's there is interesting and fun.

wolf · Tennis legend

Aucks and Delgado are the 4th seeds in the doubles, and have quite a good draw, they have wild cards Adrian Mannarino and Josselin Ouanna in R1, and if they win that, the play one of two wild cards in the quater-finals.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

Chardy has definaetly improved recently, Alex holds a 2-0 h2h over him. so i expect a close match. I know alex asked for a tuesday start as he is feeling the strain at the moment.

as with the majority of french challengers there is no english option, thats no suprise biggrin

but it looks like there will be live scores so not too bad. its a shame tho as you get used to being spoiled by the belgrade one.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Count Zero wrote:

[...] I know alex asked for a tuesday start as he is feeling the strain at the moment.

as with the majority of french challengers there is no english option, thats no suprise but it looks like there will be live scores so not too bad. its a shame tho as you get used to being spoiled by the belgrade one.

They obviously acceded to his request, as his name doesnot appear in today's OoP. The second point is not a problem for me! wink

In fact, I quite enjoy seeing French on the screen for a change (& I never bother with the English-language version of Roland-Garros! biggrin

).

* There's also live streaming, which is even accessible on my screen here at work! smile

By contrast, I quickly gave up Belgrade as a bad job last week!

Count Zero · Tennis legend

oohh i didnt spot the live stream :)

i thought the belgrade one was excellent?

also they have video clips from most of the matches on the site, inc 2 of alex.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

found it, its pretty good. they even put the score on the stream.

steven · Tennis legend

Stircrazy wrote:

In fact, I quite enjoy seeing French on the screen for a change (& I never bother with the English-language version of Roland-Garros! ).

You mean, there is an English language version of RG? wink

But yes, having everything done in French ("May is the month of égalité" (*)) is the one thing that, for me, almost makes up for them playing the French Open on boring old red clay.

(*) for years (until they put RG on TV), I used to think the French for deuce (actually 40-a the first time, égalité subsequent times, as I'm sure you all know anyway) was déuze, because my French exchange partner always said "dee-euh-ZUH" when we reached deuce. Turned out in the end that it was his one attempt to say a tennis-related word in English. ashamed

Ah, the joys of playing on clay in 40 degree heat when to him, every set was as important as the fifth set of the fifth rubber of a FRA v GBR DC Final. wink