Just give my thoughts on the Brits who were in action today.

Pritchard has a good chance of getting his first point this week as the courts seem to suit his game pretty well. He has a huge serve and a pretty big forehand as well and on the indoor carpet he will be tough to break.

He dominated the first set against Barlow and took it 6-1 rather quickly. The second set saw Barlow play a lot better as he stopped making as many silly errors while Pritchard's serve wasn't as good as he stopped getting a lot of 1st serves in and so Barlow was getting more in play. Barlow had chances to break at 2-3 and 3-4, but both times Pritchard got a big first serve in, and then broke at 4-4 to secure the match

Patient won very easily but I don't know how much I can tell about his win as his opponent looked to be about 35-40 and was probably someone's coach, but because of the low turn out decided to give it a shot. Patient served well and has a nice lefty serve and showed some good touch at the net, but I'd expect Bamford to beat him.

Zugunde vs. Modebe was apparently a really good match but didn't get to see a lot of it as I was getting ready to play during the first set and playing throughout the second and beginning of the third. Modebe may have been a break up in the 3rd as he threw his racquet to the floor just before a changeover, but this was as I finished my match so don't know the score beforehand and it was on serve when I started watching.

Zugunde got the break at 4-4 with some aggressive play and he did appear to be the better player in the final set. Modebe had a chance to break back at 5-4 but Zugunde got a good serve in and then put an easy ball away.

Both of them have talent but were quite inconsistant. One would play a great shot, but would follow up by putting a nothing ball long. Would be very surprised if Zugunde qualified given his tough draw but if he puts it all together he could do so with an easier draw.

Saw a bit of Feavor and Bains practising together and had an entertaining little match between them. Both players looked confortable on the surface and Feavor could do some damage with his lefty game as he looked to have a good serve and a good forehand which skipped through the courts. They were very evenly matched as well.

Some other good news to report... we aren't the only ones who believe the LTA doesn't have a clue what they are doing regarding player schedules. I won't give the names of those who said this in case the LTA/Press reads this and picks up on it but there was some heavy criticism of the LTA.

The concept of wanting players to play abroad was slated by some of the players, saying that they would like to go on these trips but don't have the money to do so. One of them said they could possibly get 1 or 2 trips a year at most, but would then have to take 2 or 3 weeks off afterwards to build up funds again before playing in the UK.

And that explains why so few Brits do play abroad - they just can't afford to do so. And obviously the LTA haven't thought that to fly to say Africa you need to have enough money to do so.

And obviously you need a report on my match!

At least I won the toss (so I have a win over an ATP player) but probably should have chosen to serve first on balance in the end. He started with 3 unreturnable serves and a 4th where he put the first shot away.

I then took the lead in at 0-1 with a beautiful dropshot he couldn't get near but he broke me to 15. At 0-3 I got him to deuce 2 but couldn't craft a game point for myself, although was helped here by the fact he missed 2 easy second serve returns. He then cruised through his next game and then broke me to 15, although I saved the first set point.

Second set didn't start well, although I got him with another dropshot, but just couldn't get enough decent first serves in to do anything on my serve. At 2-0 he served his only 3 aces of the match... all in 1 game and all to the deuce court. I'd decided to stand much further back to try and get a look at getting a return in but opened up the angle too much so he could ace me.

Stood a lot closer next time he served and took 1 point when I got into the net and put away a backhand smash and then won the next point as well, but he served another huge serve at 40-30 to win that game

Serving to stay in the match I got to 30-0 with a missed return and then a forehand winner, and at 30-0 he hit one that clipped the very edge of the line for a winner. Next point I hit a passing shot that would have been a winner but hit the very top of the net. He got to match point when I put a forehand into the net and then finished the match of with a smash for the win.

To be honest I was a bit disappointed with my performance as I could have played better. I didn't get as many 1st serves in as I normally do, although went for it a bit more so it's understandable. I was too aggressive in the rallies though and made too many errors with just trying to do too much and go for winners when I normally don't play like that (although I reasoned that just getting the ball in play as much as I can and just scrambling around from behind the baseline was unlikely to work against him as well as it does against club players). My backhand was a bit disappointing as well when I tried to hit topspin shots of it (when it's on it's a replica on Gasquets, when it's not working I have to abandon the topspin backhand completely). I feel I could have played a bit better than I did, but so could Celt if he ever felt in danger of struggling in the match