Week 25 - ATP Nottingham - 2008 - Qualification Draw (Dan Cox beats Bellucci WR68 !)

Count Zero · Tennis legend

RE: Week 25 - ATP Nottingham - 2008 - Qualification Draw (Dan Cox beats Bellucci WR68 !)

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

I must be in the minority here in actually liking Spadea, but even I'm hoping Eaton beats him tomorrow and makes the main draw (but Spadea gets in as LL....)

And how some people not like a man who's released a rap single with the title of Spadea, ain't afraid of ya!

I think Boggo will qualify tomorrow (the dreaded vote of confidence in Boggo, as I thought he'd lose to Kunitsyn today), I think Eaton has a great chance if he serves like he did today, while Cox will get thrashed by Nishikori.... hope I'm wrong on the last one though

Count Zero · Tennis legend

do we know if any ll's have opened up?

falla is highest ranked player left, or is it random?

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

Count Zero wrote:

do we know if any ll's have opened up?

falla is highest ranked player left, or is it random?

It's done on ranking, so Falla is the 1st LL.

No news on a withdrawal yet, but if something does come up overnight, I could see Falla tanking as often happens in these situations

Josh · Challenger level

ForeverDelayed wrote:

I must be in the minority here in actually liking Spadea, but even I'm hoping Eaton beats him tomorrow and makes the main draw (but Spadea gets in as LL....)

And how some people not like a man who's released a rap single with the title of Spadea, ain't afraid of ya!

I think Boggo will qualify tomorrow (the dreaded vote of confidence in Boggo, as I thought he'd lose to Kunitsyn today), I think Eaton has a great chance if he serves like he did today, while Cox will get thrashed by Nishikori.... hope I'm wrong on the last one though

Search 'vs10s' on YouTube. Spadea regularly posts his thoughts about his career and certain matches biggrin

john · Top national player

Damn, I assumed that GGL v Eaton wouldn't be taking place tonight so I missed that one altogether. Also completely missed Boggo's second match, had no idea it was taking place. They were hiding out the back on Court 8!

Salmon · Tennis legend

Boggo will have a good chance against Falla. But Falla likes grass even though he's a non top 80 South American, mind it - he beat Davydenko at Wimbly in 2006 and Querrey last year.

Eaton may have an outside chance against Vinny. If he doesn't win, he shouldn't feel too down as then he'll get to play Wimbly qualies, plus he'll get 500 Euros for this, which is a little more than what you get for a 15K semis, I think.

It's not sensible to expect absolutely anything from Coxy barring the prevention of a drubbing, and I won't be disappointed if even that is the case. Nishikori could be top 50 by the time USO is over and will probably be making an impact at the highest stages of the game in the near future. That said, he struggled a bit against Widom today because of the inconsistency that naturally comes with this age so who knows what'll happen tomorrow... They have never met before, mostly due to the fact that Nishikori quit Juniors around the same time as Coxy started. Whatever the result, Dan can only gain from playing such a talented player.

Shame about Richard's injury.

Hopefully it's not serious at all.

steven · Tennis legend

ForeverDelayed wrote:
No news on a withdrawal yet, but if something does come up overnight, I could see Falla tanking as often happens in these situations

As mentioned on the main draw thread, Soderling is out so there is now an extra Q/LL place against Jamie Baker.

steven · Tennis legend

Here's the round-up I did earlier but with the missing scores filled in and the OoP for the FQR:

QR1: Daniel Cox WR 942 beat (q2) Thomaz Bellucci (BRA) WR 68 by 6-4 4-6 6-4 biggrin

QR1: (WC) George Coupland WR 1678 lost to (q3) Igor Kunitsyn (RUS) WR 78 by 6-2 7-6(2) cry

QR1: Alex Bogdanovic WR 243 beat Bruno Soares (BRA) WR 723 by 6-0 4-6 6-3 smile

QR1: (WC) George Morgan UNR lost to Davide Sanguinetti (ITA) WR 696 by 2 & 5 cry

QR1: (WC) Dan Smethurst WR 1156 lost to (q5) Alejandro Falla (COL) WR 101 by 4 & 2 cry

QR1: (WC) Daniel Evans WR 988 lost to (q4) Guillermo Garcia-Lopez (ESP) WR 91 by 3-6 6-3 6-4 cry

QR1: Chris Eaton WR 660 beat Neil Bamford WR 674 by 7-6(5) 3-2 ret. smile

QR1: Richard Bloomfield WR 412 lost to Luka Gregorc (SLO) WR 422 by 7-6(5) 6-2 bleh

QR2: Daniel Cox WR 942 beat Andrew Coelho (AUS) WR 292 by 7-5 7-6(3) biggrin

QR2: Alex Bogdanovic WR 243 beat (q3) Igor Kunitsyn (RUS) WR 78 by 4 & 3 biggrin

QR2: Chris Eaton WR 660 beat (q4) Guillermo Garcia-Lopez (ESP) WR 91 by 4 & 5 biggrin

FQR: Samuel Groth (AUS) WR 304 v Frederik Nielsen (DEN) WR 290 - 1st on Court 2 @ 11 am
FQR: Daniel Cox WR 942 v (q7) Kei Nishikori (JPN) WR 113 - 2nd on Court 1
FQR: Alex Bogdanovic WR 243 v (q5) Alejandro Falla (COL) WR 101 - 1st on Court 1 @ 11 am
FQR: Chris Eaton WR 660 v (q6) Vince Spadea (USA) WR 110 - 2nd on Court 2

LL order (if a player wins, just omit them from the list)

Falla - Spadea - Nishikori - Boggo - Nielsen - Groth - Eaton - Cox

As mentioned above, with one LL place already available, this means that we are sure to get one more Brit in the main draw, because if all three of them lose, Boggo will get the LL place. However, you can still end up with zero points if you get a LL place, so let's hope one of more of them gets the 5 points available for qualifying.

A couple of reports on the LTA site

http://www.lta.org.uk/news/All-news-items/WC09-06-08/Cox-and-Bogdanovic-win-in-Nottingham/

http://www.lta.org.uk/news/All-news-items/WC09-06-08/Eaton-storms-into-final-qualifying-round-at-The-Slazenger-Open/

Edit: corrected re Greenleaf's post below.

-- Edited by steven at 12:11, 2008-06-15

Salmon · Tennis legend

^ Some summary that is! All that you can possibly need.

Not that it matters, but Gregorc's ranking should be 422!

Exceptional performances from each and every player today barring the two who were injured/sick. I don't think that we've had such satisfying a performance in Slam/Tour qualies in Britain for a long, long time. I've given them (barring those who had fitness troubles) marks according to how much I loved their performances

-

You beat a top 100 player, and then you beat a Challenger level player. So how many points do you get? 0 it is if you have such a biased system where apparently the number of points should always be more at tournaments which have more cash to throw around. Still the experience is worth far more than the 15 or so points that he deserves. Bellucci may be a clay courter, but there's probably no one in the top 100 who's as confident as he is right now (or was a few hours ago), plus his game seemed okay (maybe not brilliant) for grass with his serve. Coelho has a lot of grass experience, so that was a good win to back up the first one with. 9.5/10 for Dan.

More or less impressed with Coupland's score, too. Kunitsyn may not be great on grass but he's top 100 and I'm happy to see that George can compete with Tour level players on a surface that's custom made for his game. 6.5/10 for George.

Boggo was expected to beat Kunitsyn and he did it in straights, so we should forgive him for losing a set to Soares. Yet another scalp for the Count's signature, as he mentioned earlier. 8/10 for Boggo.

I'm not sure of what to make of Morgan's score given that Sanguinetti doesn't care much and it appears that he's now Spadea's coach (or else it's someone's idea of a joke on MTF). Still, he has done well against a player who formally excelled at Tour level and that's a good feat at his age. I hope that he'll try to get to the top 150 of the Junior rankings by the end of the year - a difficult goal perhaps, but what's the point of having a goal if it's not challenging? 6/10 for George, but that could be harsh or generous depending on what Sanguinetti was like.

Smethurst was fine, barring the 7 DFs he conceded in his service games, a bit high for a person who is supposed to be a good server in such a short match. Still, he ran Falla, who has won quite a few grass matches (including one over an ATP top 10 player), very close in the first set and that's impressive for a person who has been playing full time for only a year now. I think he can do a lot of damage later in the grass season. 5.5/10 for Smethurst.

Congrats to Eaton on what I think is his first top 100 win, although Evo helped him a bit in this. Not taking away the credit, of course! Eaton's a fine player on grass and his serve was very useful by the look of the stats. 9/10 for Eaton.

The best performance of the day, in my opinion, was Evo's. GGL is far from the sort of dirtballer who comes to Wimbly for the first round loser's cheque. He has won rounds at ATP grass tourneys on a regular basis, the highlights being wins over Ferrer and Grosjean. And that long game that he won in the middle of the third was outrageous - I have never followed anything like that in my life. It was a fine way to answer his critics (I don't mean people here!) who thought that he doesn't have the game to challenge a top 100 player. 9.5/10 to this Dan, too.

8.5/10 to the LTA for the WCs. Not giving Tipsy a WC was a great decision, as was not giving one to Boggo. Giving one to Baker wasn't a good idea, as I would much rather have him in qualies - still it worked out nicely since he gets a good draw now.

0.5/10 to the scoreboard.

-- Edited by Greenleaf at 10:02, 2008-06-15

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

Greenleaf wrote:

You beat a top 100 player, and then you beat a Challenger level player. So how many points do you get? 0 it is if you have such a biased system where apparently the number of points should always be more at tournaments which have more cash to throw around. Still the experience is worth far more than the 15 or so points that he deserves. Bellucci may be a clay courter, but there's probably no one in the top 100 who's as confident as he is right now (or was a few hours ago), plus his game seemed okay (maybe not brilliant) for grass with his serve. Coelho has a lot of grass experience, so that was a good win to back up the first one with. 9.5/10 for Dan.

-- Edited by Greenleaf at 10:02, 2008-06-15

I understand it seems unfair that you can beat 2 players like Cox did today and still get no points, but it can't be fair that you get more points for winning matches in qualifying than you would do for winning a match in the main draw.

And yes, Cox will have to beat 3 highly ranked players to get 5 points, but in Rosmalen, the same level of tournament, Troicki will have to beat bye, an unranked WC and then someone outside the top 400 to get the 5 points, but you can't say that Cox would deserve more points, just because he's lower ranked. (And would you argue for Belluci gettting points because he beat a 17 year old 900 places below him and then someone else 200 places below him? - I doubt it)

Giving players 15 points for winning 2 matches in qualifying as you appear to suggest would equal winning a main draw match - so you'd give someone like Spadea who beat 2 players outside the top 400 yesterday the same number of points as you'd get for beating Stepanek in the 1st round? Makes no sense really and isn't a workable system.

It's a risk vs. reward system - you risk playing in the higher level ATP qualifying where you may get no points for not qualifying about higher ranked players, but get more points if you do make the main draw, while if you want to play lower ranked opponents you play a challenger or a futures event, where the points are easier to come by, but you don't get as many.

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

Boggo leads 3-2*, but saved a BP in the last game

Count Zero · Tennis legend

yeah, how is the sb for you fd? for me went from 15-15 to 30-40.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

boggo doesnt look be getting anyhting on falla's serve, only won 2 return points and 1 was a df.

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

A bit jumpy to begin with but settled down in that last game and went through the scores as normal

3-3 now, but Boggo's just won 2 points on the Falla serve, 1 being a DF