Pleasing performances from Jordan Miles and Alex Watt, each taking ranked opponents to the limit. Alex lost 5-7 in the third set, whilst Jordan took his opponent, WR 1075, to 8-10 in the final set tie-break.
(q)Lazare Kukhalashvili (GEO) d. (7)Edward Seator (GBR) 6-4 6-3 (q)Burnham Arlidge (GBR) d. (5)Raphael Durek (AUS) 7-6(5) 6-4 (4)Alberto Francis (USA) d. Jonathan Kinsella (GBR) 6-2 7-6(14) (2)Conor Niland (IRL) d. (q)Edward Corrie (GBR) 5-7 6-4 6-2
Great effort by Corrie there and to Burnham.
I'm not shocked with Ed's result 'cause Lazare is mega talented. He was the best in the world a few years ago but has suffered some time out of the game and hence has lost some of his touch - but still, probably the old self comes back every now and then. Hopefully he has not shelved his plans to become British!
Where the hell has Burnham found this form from? Great couple of weeks for him though, and he's started to make his way up the rankings quite nicely over the last 2 weeks.
Didn't think Seator would lose today and that's a disappointing loss as he needs to take advantage of these matches and get the points on the board for when his points from Italy and Poland come off.
Good efforts from Corrie and Kinsella as well, but a shame they couldn't win and make it 3 Brits in the QF's
And so the streak goes on, but I don't think we expected the Aussie-turned-Brit to win this one, and a great couple of weeks for him, and I presume he'll try and qualify in Dublin to keep this run going.
Both Francis and Niland won today as well, but both in a 3rd set TB, Francis winning his 14-12, so must have saved 3 or 4 match points at least