Week 27 - Cordoba Challenger [100K+H] - 2008.

Salmon · Tennis legend

Week 27 - Cordoba Challenger [100K+H] - 2008.

steven · Tennis legend

Great to see Wardy giving this one a go

QR1: (q8) James Ward WR 476 v Oscar Sabate-Bretos (ESP) WR 810

Salmon · Tennis legend

If he gets there, he'll probably play Klein in the final round, and that won't be easy. 3 points and 1110 Euros if he qualifies!

Count Zero · Tennis legend

why do you need wc's into a qualies event that has byes?

Salmon · Tennis legend

It often happens that players aren't physically present during the sign in, but there are places left in the draw. In those cases, if you call them up from before, they'll put you in as a WC (unless they're very rude!).

That is one possible explanation. I don't know if there can be other reasons.

Smidster · Challenger level

According to 'LiveScore' Ward leads 3-0

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

Good to see Wardy giving this a go, and he has a chance of qualifiying given that he beat Klien in a fantastic match at Surbiton, and I'd expect these courts would be slower than that, and so his clay court experience and more patience could get him past Klien.

As long as he gets to that match though and doesn't slip up beforehand, and it would be great to see him in the main draw here

He's just won the first set 6-0, so it's looking easy so far

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

He lost the second set 7-6, having twice been a break up (I think)

He led 4-2 anyway, so was at least 1 break, and after going 5-4 down, led 6-5, so either way he was broken twice.

Hope he can win the 3rd set here as this would be a poor loss if he does lose this.

Josh · Challenger level

Ward wins 6-0 6-7 6-1, and now faces another Spaniard, Pablo Martin.

johnnylad · Tennis legend

Alright! Wardy! Nice to see James back on court...

That seems a patchy result though. Iguess sets 1 and 3 tell the real story and set 2 tells the story of what happens when you lose concentration and dip a little.

As I said though, that's a guess.

Can't dip against either of his next prospective opponents though

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

Good to see him get the win, but no idea what he was doing in the second set and he can't afford to have that kind of lapse against Klein though.

Pablo Martin has never played a senior tournament before this, and his only ever win at junior level was over Ashley Hewitt, so I don't think he's going to be the toughest of second round opponents, and I'd be amazed if he dropped a set to him.

steven · Tennis legend

ForeverDelayed wrote:
Pablo Martin has never played a senior tournament before this, and his only ever win at junior level was over Ashley Hewitt, so I don't think he's going to be the toughest of second round opponents, and I'd be amazed if he dropped a set to him.

I'm reading this and thinking "what? I know he's played lots of Brits before and he once beat Rob Dee 0 & 1" and then I realised - you must have the wrong Pablo Martin (which, don't worry, is an easier mistake to make than it sounds)

Wardy's opponent is Pablo Martin-Adalia WR 634 (at career high) who qualified and then reached the QFs of a Future in Germany last week. He has beaten David Rice twice (the last time 2 & 3 in March) and various other young Brits in the last 6 months but lost 6-4 7-6(5) to Chris Eaton in Israel in March 2007, and more importantly, lost 1 & 3 to James himself in Portugal earlier the same month. smile

He also partnered James in two doubles tournaments in Mexico earlier this year.

-- Edited by steven at 16:02, 2008-06-29

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

steven wrote:

ForeverDelayed wrote:
Pablo Martin has never played a senior tournament before this, and his only ever win at junior level was over Ashley Hewitt, so I don't think he's going to be the toughest of second round opponents, and I'd be amazed if he dropped a set to him.
I'm reading this and thinking "what? I know he's played lots of Brits before and he once beat Rob Dee 0 & 1" and then I realised - you must have the wrong Pablo Martin.

Wardy's opponent is Pablo Martin-Adalia WR 634 (at career high) who qualified and then reached the QFs of a Future in Germany last week. He has beaten David Rice twice (the last time 2 & 3 in March) and various other young Brits in the last 6 months but lost 6-4 7-6(5) to Chris Eaton in Israel in March 2007, and more importantly, lost 1 & 3 to James himself in Portugal earlier the same month.

He also partnered James in two doubles tournaments in Mexico earlier this year.

Just realised that biggrin

He was listed as Pablo Martin on the livescore earlier (I think), and so that's what I looked up.... didn't think to check whether there was another Pablo Martin, but with another surname listed further down the ITF site.

Not quite such an easy match then for James, but he still should win the match.

steven · Tennis legend

There are just too many Spaniards, that's the problem - some of them are bound to share the same name. On the drawsheets, in Spain at least, they tend to put a player's full name (first name followed by father's surname followed by mother's surname, which is the official naming convention in Spain), though a lot of them drop the second surname completely when they reach ATP level.

steven · Tennis legend

I meant to add to the last post that looking at these mouthfuls, you'll see why they dropped their second surnames:

Rafael Nadal Parera
David Ferrer Ern
Fernando Verdasco Carmona
Nicolas Almagro Sanchez Rolle
Tommy Robredo Garcés (*)
Juan Carlos Ferrero Donat
Carlos Moyà Llompart
Feliciano Lopez Diaz-Guerra

(*) Tommy is his real name btw - his father was a big fan of the Who!