Week 24 - Queen's Club ATP - London

Shhh · Challenger level

RE: Week 24 - Queen's Club ATP - London

steven · Tennis legend

What a disgrace, not least because with their singles rankings, both Rafa and Andy surely had plenty of partner options that would have guaranteed them a DA. I see they mention all four of the Brits in qualifying on their front page now, but the only two news articles from today are about Jamie going out and Andy's draw.

I don't think we can really blame Andy and Jamie for looking out for their own interests, but Queen's pandering to them and hardly giving a second thought to what were some big GB successes today is really distasteful.

CBV · Junior player

absolutely shocking doubles wc's.

i was at queen's today, had a fantastic time. i'm going to try this and see if it works, someone let me know if it does or not! i know some of you will hate using facebook to access my photos from today but if you follow this link you should be able to see my album of photos easily and use them for whatever you fancy.

here goes.... (PS you don't need to have facebook to see these)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=39965&l=fb778&id=558731260

slabba was great today, really aggressive tennis and was unlikely to come up against udomchoke who had amazing positioning on court and got everything back. He played really solidly against Muller who was losing his head and the first set against Udomchoke was fantastic.

bloomers seemed on top form, was hitting the ball really nicely, the serve was booming and he was coming in to the net at all the right times.

i didn't see much of ward either, but from what i saw he seemed decent all round but nothing particularly 'killer' about him, though his serve is really good when it goes in.

murray, shouldn't have had a wild card and should have done better against kubot. His volleys were generally poor and he was caught out at the net on a few occasions. At 5-6* down he served two double faults and was broken to love which wasn't encouraging either (and he still wants a wimbledon singles wc says the bbc).

-- Edited by CBV at 22:21, 2008-06-07

-- Edited by CBV at 22:37, 2008-06-07

-- Edited by CBV at 22:56, 2008-06-07

wolf · Tennis legend

Ross is in Poland, but it is a disgrace that Aucks & Delgado and a pairing like Goodall & Bamford or Skupski & Bloomfield didn't get a wild card. I'm sorry but the LTA are just taking incompetance to new depths.

Well done to Bloomers, Wardy and Slabba today. I hope we get at least one qualifier tommorow.

steven · Tennis legend

We were of course 100% correct about the only Queen's story on the BBC website today:

"Murray loses Queen's singles bid"

Paras 1-2 and 7-8 about Jamie losing
Paras 3-6 about Jamie still hoping for a WC for Wimbledon
Paras 7-9 about Andy's draw
.... then a quick mention of the draws for the GB WCs

And where do we find the most important news of the day, i.e. 5 GB wins against much higher-ranked players? I'm still looking ... furious

As for the LTA site, the top story is Dan Evans WC ... oh yes, I forgot, it's the weekend, there's never any tennis news worth reporting at the weekend, is there.

How would you feel as a GB tennis player not called Murray if everyone goes on about you never having any success, and when you do really well, everyone ignores it? (and you don't get any ranking points for it either) doh

Drew · Jun 7, 2008

Do you think that both the media and even the LTA see a couple of guys winning the odd round in a challenger / low level ATP qualies as not worth reporting because "they will loose sooner rather then later..." attitude.

We hear a lot of 'This is worse set of mens British tennis players for years...' and they would rather keep banging on about that...and hope someone does a Murray by coming from zero to hero ?

Rather than periodically reporting the steady gains that some of our guys and making and keeping things into perspective....thats it...perspective....the bloody press dont have any !

So unless Dan Evans gets to the QF this week it will be same muck from most of the media !

Nathaliia · Lower Club Player

lol at the wild cards, disguisting at best

Simmy26 · Lower Club Player

Great results today for Bloomfield and Ward, fingers crossed they both get through.

I wish everyone would stop being so hard on Andy and Jamie though. Jamie was quite within his rights to ask for a WC for both Queens and Wimbledon. He has done a lot for British Tennis eg winning Mixed at Wimbers last year, and he is right that there is not much else out there for British tennis fans to get too excited about. Boggo having a nightmare year and if he loses in first 2 rounds at Queens will lose yet more ranking points. The only things worth getting remotely excited about are Jamie Bakers progress before his illness and Slabbas steady progress, but even these two were/are hardly setting the Challenger worls alight. What has Andy done to p*** everyone off so much? Pull out of a Davis Cup match and quite rightly have a go at the work ethic of other British Professionals who get it far too easy in comparison to their Eastern European counterparts. I think he knows what he is talking about.

James · Satellite level

Firstly, a standard 'Welcome to the board' Slimmy26.

And secondly, I would really enjoy viewing the evidence that you have which shows that the work ethic of our senior professional players is less than that of their Eastern European counterparts? [the same evidence that Andy was unable to produce]. I appreciate that there is a strong liklihood that there are some British players who possibly don't deserve funding due to a lack of effort but to tarnish all lower ranked Brits with the same brush is nothing short of unfair.

And yes Jamie was technically within his rights to ask for a Wildcard however he did so knowing that simply being a Murray would guarantee him what he wanted, not his singles ability [he knew he would waste it]. He then unfairly took a swipe at our lower ranked players even though he couldn't make it in the singles game and will never have the skill or ability to do so. And I don't think that Jamie should be able to rest on laurels of having won a mixed doubles title, in my eyes he still has far to go in proving himself as a world class doubles player [by going deep in Men's doubles slams.. which he has so far failed to do]

And there is plenty for the educated British tennis fans to get excited about, you will find much celebration and joviality on these boards week in week out as we rejoice the achievements of players [perhaps not as talent as Andy M or Tim H] who are reaching the limits that there ability will allow of them. Those who aren't getting excited are those "fans" that only watch the game for the two weeks of Wimbledon and think that little more than exhibition play exists outside of that period. Yes, we are in desperate need of more Top100 [200 for that matter] ranked players but it is very harsh to state that those who are languishing behind that mark are doing so due to a lack of work ethic.

Malteaser · Junior player

100 % agree with what James has to say.

Slimmy welcome to the board and just to reassure you, as I've been reading these boards for over a year now, there is no shortage of love for the Murray brothers. Everyone on this board wants them to win.

Even yesterday when he was handed out a slightly unfair wildcard, I would suggest that 99% of the board still wanted Jamie to win.

Drew, totally agree "perspective" is what the press is completely missing. We are where we are, we can't fastforward careers to make the press and others happy.

mjd · Challenger qualifying

CBV wrote:
.............. i'm going to try this and see if it works, someone let me know if it does or not! .................here goes.... (PS you don't need to have facebook to see these)............

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=39965&l=fb778&id=558731260

Works fine for me - Thanks, particularly helpful Alt text - almost a commentary!

One word describes Andy's and Nadal's doubles WC without bothering to enter as DA with appropriate partner - "Selfish" (Could also be applied to Jamie's singles WC)

Sheddie · administrator

When the Count met the Shedman.....

It's the meeting all cyberspace had been waiting for........

Slabba bt Muller 7-6, 7-6: Fantastic performances from Slabba today, he impressed big time, best ever win.....watching were his coach, Jeremy Bates, Paul Hutchins, Paul Annacone.......you can see why Muller has had plenty of grass court success in the past, consistently huge serving and great volleying. However when they were in the baseline rallies he just couldn't live with Slabba, ripped a few forehand winners but mostly they landed long or wide. Slabba served huge - 17 aces in all and didn't need to face a bp.

Towards end of first set Muller was getting more and more frustrated with calls, feeling they were biased against him...at one point he chucked his racket about 40 feet in the air. His convos with the umpire were hilarious, if he doesn't make it back into top 100 he should go on the stand-up comedy circuit....on one point he was unhappy that a Slabba serve hadn't been called as a let.....Muller: "Why did you not hear that ? I'm not talking to you (as Slabba tried to intervene). Is it because he says 'c'mon' after the serve ?"

Muller didn't play a great tiebreak, 3 dfs and he smashed a ball well into centre court.

Muller upped things in set 2, Slabba couldn't get anywhere near his serve for a while but Slabba was now striking his forehand with even more venom than usual. He had bp at 4-3 I think and then 3-4 mps on Muller serve at 5-4 after some stinging returns. However on 3 of those Muller hit 2 aces and then ripped a forehand winner. On the 4th Slabba missed a 2nd serve return. Atmosphere was so tense courtside but it went to another tiebreak. Both exchanged mbs early on with fabulous backhand passing shots. Slabba had about 4 more match points, but again the nerveless Muller ripped down several big serves and a forehand winner. Slabba had to save sp with an ace and eventually clinched it 10-8 as a Muller volley landed long

I was hugely impressed with Slabba in this match he's improved so much to when I saw him in November. The backhand is a lot more consistent, very few errors now and he can attack off it. Serve is just enormous and he hits the 2nd serve almost as hard, forehand is a huge weapon.......on this form he's going places

Simmy26 · Lower Club Player

Thanks James and Malteaser for your replies. Firstly I would like to say that I am not one of those people who suddenly turns on the telly for the two weeks of Wimbledon but trawl through the ITF website for any glimpse of British success at Future level, and have followed Andy's career incredibly closely since he was a junior. I can even tell you that I was checking the internet on my honeymoon on a cruise ship to find out his results when he won his first challenger at Aptos in July 05. Enough of my credentials!! I believe that there hardworking honest professionals out there making the most of the talent they have to reach 300 or 400 in the world. But there must be something wrong with the system when we can only produce one world class player every dozen years or so. I know that there are plenty people like us who get excited by the smallest amount of success in the smallest tournaments but to get kids playing tennis we need someone like Andy being successful at Wimbledon and the other biggies. I do agree that the press need to take a long hard look at themselves and the BBC's coverage yesterday was nothing short of disgraceful.
PS come on Bloomers and Wardy!!

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

Great start for Ward as Umdomchoke DF's to give him an early break!

Count Zero · Tennis legend

wardy consolidated and it 3-0*

kubot is a breka up! 2-0*
blommers miised a bp chance 1-1
de voest facing 2bp's