Count Zero wrote:

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hey fd, if you want a straight sets win you can play me!
i have beatan boggo at top spin, so in way that would put you above boggo :)

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Well seeing what I've read on the BBC website about Boggo, it doesn't take a lot to beat him as he's apparantly one of the worst tennis players in the world and should just give him, so I'd fancy myself to take him!

I'm actually in some real form at the moment as I haven't dropped more than 3 games in a set or 5 games in a match in my last 6 matches, and these were on all outside hard courts which I don't really like.

Today I won 3 and 0, although against a weaker opponent, but only dropped 3 points on serve (2 were double faults....), and my serve isn't exactly strong so it's all coming together quite nicely at the moment.

We should try and get a BT.net tennis tournament going at some point and find out which of the posters is the best player... the only problem would be that everyone lives so far apart.

well consdiering i thinm your the only member who has playe dfutures qualies (as far as i know anyway) i think you'd be a shoe in. sheddie plays quite a bit. cant remember what his ranking is tho.
i am not sure which other members play tennis to a degree.
i think shaun from am.com is menat to be very good but i dont know how he would compare with full hearing players


-- Edited by Count Zero at 23:20, 2008-06-26

ForeverDelayed wrote:

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Sheddie wrote:

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I guess I'm probably the only person (apart from Bethan) who's seen Chris play in futures in the past year, 1 on outdoor hard and another indoors. He lost both times, first to James Ward then to Flanagan

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Didn't see him play at Exmouth, but just checking the results tells me he lost in the first round to Dawid Celt.

Didn't someone else lose at Exmouth in straight sets to him?

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I'm sure somebody not far from here did, but I'm guessing Eaton didn't lose 0 & 0

Like most other people commenting on here, I thought Chris had exactly the right game plan today for a player of his level playing against Tursunov.

While I thought he had a chance of winning if Mitya had an extreme off day, we know from his matches against Tigger quite how much Mitya loves to have a serve-volleyer as a target, and there was always a chance of a gruesome scoreline if Chris got nervous or ran out of ideas because Tursunov was smashing everything back past him.

So, given that Mitya was on good form, I thought Chris exceeded expectations today, and although Pashanski was a dream draw in R1, plenty of Brits before him have got winnable draws and not come away with a win, so I doubt every other Brit WC of the last two or three years would have beaten Pashanski, though doubtless some of them would have.

Probably Chris's best performance of the five was the win against Patience in the FQR, based on Patience's pedigree on grass and the way JL raves about that match, which he was at Roehampton to watch.

Not resting on any laurels now is definitely the key - too many GB players have not pushed on from a result like this and then 6-12 months down the line, started to wilt at the thought of those points coming off.

Flan's the first example I thought of too, but there's also Big Arv after his run at Rotterdam ATP, who retired when it got close to the time the points would come off, Lee Childs (our one qualifier last year), another player who didn't last another year before he retired, Barry Cowan who took Sampras to 5 sets in 2001, Mark Hilton thrashing French Open Champion Albert Costa in R1 at Wimby in 2002, etc.

The things that mark Chris out as maybe a bit different are that most of the Brits who have done something big in one of the big grass court events have been older than Chris, while the younger ones who have managed it have tended to let it go to their heads, whereas Chris comes across as a lot more grounded and that has to be a good thing.

People often say on here that some of the Brits can never make thetop 100 because they haven't got a big weapon in their armoury - well here's someone who has!

I reckon I would stand a chance in a bt.net tournament, although looking at FD's LTA results they are decent enough.

Perhaps Madeline and I could be ball girls - sorry Madeline, don't know if you play - but not the ones at the net or you might have to wait a bit every time I had to get off my knees and run for the ball.

-- Edited by goldfish at 14:16, 2008-06-27

Just reralised what was weird about yesterday's match was Henman was commentating on a match featuring a player ranked lower than him!

gazzpash wrote:

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Just reralised what was weird about yesterday's match was Henman was commentating on a match featuring a player ranked lower than him!

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Only until Monday week