Week 17 - Challenger - $50k - Baton Rouge, USA

steven · Tennis legend

Week 17 - Challenger - $50k - Baton Rouge, USA

mjd · Challenger qualifying

steven wrote:

Doh! You and your doubles parnter go all the way to Louisiana to play qualifying and get drawn against each other.

QR1: (q6) Richard Bloomfield WR 358 v Ken Skupski WR 635

NO! that is so annoying, to be in the same group is bad enough but round 1 ..... furious

steven · Tennis legend

QR1: (q6) Richard Bloomfield WR 358 beat Ken Skupski WR 635 by 3 & 2 smile

QR2: (q6) Richard Bloomfield WR 358 v Philipp Oswald (AUT) WR 421

Put your doubles partner in his rightful place, that's the way to do it. wink

Another bit of good news for Bloomers, who beat Oswald 2 & 4 in Nottingham last September - the other seed in his section, (q2) Prakash Amritraj, retired hurt in his QR1 match, so Richard won't have to beat anyone higher-ranked than himself in order to make it to the main draw.

L32: Alex Bogdanovic WR 217 v (7) Go Soeda (JPN) WR 154 (at CH)

At first sight, it's not good that Alex has drawn a seed, but at least he has drawn a low seed and if he can beat him, his way would be clear to the QFs, where (3) Kunitsyn WR 111 would probably await.

James Ward, the only Brit Soeda has faced since 2005, took a set off him last year. Soeda once partnered Amadeus in doubles - they lost, of course. wink

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

Soeda is definately beatable, but so have been most of the opponents Alex has lost to this year, and Kevin Kim is waiting for his again in round 2 which doesn't look too good.

I would think that Boggo should win this match, but nowhere near as confident as I should be about it

Bloomers won a lot more easily than I'd expected he would do which is good to see and hopefully he can go on and qualify and put together a good run here

Madeline · Admin:Moderator + Tennis Legend

Soeda has just won the Challenger in Busan (admittedly by the retirement of his opponent Lu) so is in pretty good form, but may be a bit tired. Fingers crossed for Boggo!

johnnylad · Tennis legend

Does the fact that Bastl has an SE here mean that if Josh had been on the orginal qualies list he would have got an SE here?

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

johnnylad wrote:

Does the fact that Bastl has an SE here mean that if Josh had been on the orginal qualies list he would have got an SE here?

I think the fact he had entered a futures disqualifies him from getting a SE.

If he wasn't in the entry list for the Mexico futures then he would have got a SE to here (or Cremona if he really wanted to go back to Europe)

johnnylad · Tennis legend

Prpbaly has more chance of consolidating last week success in the Futures tournaments I spose!

I hope Ken and Bloomers make the doubles cut. Otherwise Ken's just following Richard around.

mjd · Challenger qualifying

Monday OOP shows Richard playing Luka Gregorc (SLO) FQR

and later Bloomers/Skups vs Battistone/Battistone (USA)

but draw sheets not yet updated!

steven · Tennis legend

QR2: (q6) Richard Bloomfield WR 358 beat Philipp Oswald (AUT) WR 421 by 1-6 7-6(2) 6-1

I'm glad I didn't see that 1st set score on its own!

FQR: (q6) Richard Bloomfield WR 358 v Luka Gregorc (SLO) WR 436

Bloomers beat Gregorc 4 & 2 in Nashville last last year.

L32: Alex Bogdanovic WR 217 v (7) Go Soeda (JPN) WR 154 (at CH)

I agree with Mad and FD that this won't be easy, but if he can't start beating guys like Soeda and Kim again soon, he might as well give up on ever getting back into the top 150.

steven · Tennis legend

Scrap that, Soeda has now withdrawn from this tournament. At least someone is still scared of Brad and the Bogster! wink

Revised L32: Alex Bogdanovic WR 217 v (9) Robert Smeets (AUS) WR 162

Smeets beat Bloomers in the Mexico City Challenger last week before losing to Josh, of course. He also beat Boggo last October in Rennes, but it was close - 3-6 7-6(4) 6-4 and in USO Q last year, 3-0 ret. However, Boggo beat him 6-4 7-6(6) in Lanzarote and 4 & 2 in Valencia, both about a year ago. i.e. their H2H is 2-2, all in 2007.

This is also good news for Bloomers, because a lucky loser space has opened up and only the no. 1, 3 and 6 (him) Q seeds have survived to the FQR. However, I'd rather he got points for qualifying than do the usual Brit trick of getting a LL place, losing in R1 and thus going away with no points at all!

mjd · Challenger qualifying

Boggo is also in the doubles, paired with 'fellow Serbian' Vladimir OBRADOVIC BUT they have a tough first round against (4)Ghouse/Warburg.

Boggo does not play either of his matches Monday.

imoen · Admin: Moderator+Tennis Legend

The Battistone brothers play with two-handled rackets apparently so that'll be something new for Bloomers and Skupski to negociate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzNr90XZ05A&feature=related

mjd · Challenger qualifying

imoen wrote:

The Battistone brothers play with two-handled rackets apparently so that'll be something new for Bloomers and Skupski to negociate.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzNr90XZ05A&feature=related

Very interesting, I had to check that it wasn't April 1st biggrin

Most worrying is the volley ball type serve - perhaps we should return to both feet in contact with ground at time of impact!

brattistone%20racket.jpg

mjd · Challenger qualifying

Richard beat Gregorc 6-3 4-6 6-2 to qualify but typically has been drawn against 5th seed Amer Delic (139) (USA) when there were Q vs Q etc!

But then (with Skups) lost doubles to the 2 handle rackets a volley ball serves of Battistones 57 62 11-9

Richard plays 2nd match Tuesday
Alex vs Smeets 3rd match

Navy75 on MTF posted these comments:

Unfortunately mate the Bloomfield doubles match was in progress and the Kunitsyn match was warming up when I left, so I can't speak to those two matches.

As for his singles match, I was pretty impressed by Bloomfield. He had a lot of service winners, and ripped several returns of serve for winners as well. He looked really frustrated after gift wrapping the 2nd set away late, and came out fired up in the 3rd. Gregorc really wanted it and had played the best of all the qualifiers going into today, and fought with the ref a fair amount in the 3rd (all going back to one call). The one thing that really surprised me about Bloomfield today was how many beautiful drop shot winners he had. We're talking 5-10 in the 2nd and 3rd sets alone, and Gregorc is pretty quick. Bloomfield had more effective drop shots today than anyone I've seen all year, bar none (no exaggeration) The other thing that is surprising is how fair his skin is despite playing tennis outdoors all the time lol.

(Drop shots! I wonder if Navy75 has watched Andy this year? )

-- Edited by mjd at 01:20, 2008-04-22