Week 28 - Challenger ($50k) - Ramat Hasharon, Israel

Count Zero · Tennis legend

RE: Week 28 - Challenger ($50k) - Ramat Hasharon, Israel

john · Top national player

Must have been tired after that long final set tiebreak match

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

That was unexpected, a disappointing loss after the great win over Smeets, but guessing it took his toll on him, or he didn't have a great day at all.

QF's was more than we expected this week, so on the whole it was still an impressive week despite the bad finish, and hoping he can match the performance next week in Manchester

kundalini · Specialist Reporter + Intermediate Club Player

Yet to make a Challenger semi-final (i think); hope he can do it some time this summer. I guess it was a good tournament for Slabba but it's a bit depressing to suffer such a heavy defeat to a modest challenger standard opponent.

Sheddie · administrator

was a strange scoreline against klec but I just spoke to alex and this explains it

He injured his knee in the long match against smeets but then the tourney organisers made him play doubles straight after the singles had finished even though it was already 10pm. Couldn't pull out cause would lose all doubles prize money. The doubles match went to 3 long sets

Then got put on 1st on court the next day against klec, in the super heat so no recovery time. Was really tired and the knee was killing. He was gutted as it was a good chance against klec but was unable to run, trying to just hit clean winners but kept missing. Klec played pretty well too

However Alex is really pleased atm with his play, serving huge, lot of aces....wasnt able to do that against klec unfortunately with the injury

Should be fine for manchester tho I think with maybe 4 days rest and hopefully tuesday start

john · Top national player

Cheers for that Sheddie, I didn't think they would be allowed to put him on first if he didn't start his doubles until 10pm the night before. Is there not some sort of recovery time rule?

Sheddie · administrator

apparently not.....as he finished his 2nd round match against smeets and then 15min later was back on court for doubles.....Alex was quite pissed off

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

Sheddie wrote:

apparently not.....as he finished his 2nd round match against smeets and then 15min later was back on court for doubles.....Alex was quite pissed off

Seriously???

I've got the ATP rulebook in front of me, and if that is true (no reason to doubt Alex), then he's got a right of complaint to the ATP surely.

Presuming his match with Smeets was more than 90 minutes long, he should have had a minimum of 90 minutes rest, and even if it was less than 1 hour, he shouldn't have played for at least 30 minutes, so for him to have to play after 15 minutes goes against everything the rulebook suggests, and it was totally wrong of the organisers to make him play.

There has to be a 12 hour delay after playing a match on the previous day, so if he finished his doubles match at midnight, he could have been asked to play at midday the following day, and I don't think they started that early (even so, he should have been 2nd on, so technically can't complain about that)

But having to play with less than the minimum about of rest.... that is something he could complain about

http://www.atptennis.com/en/common/TrackIt.asp?file=/en/players/2008_Rulebook_rev0708.pdf

Rest periods is pages 89-93 if you want to check out the rulebook

Salmon · Tennis legend

kundalini wrote:
When's the deadline for US Open qualies? How many events can he play before then?

As far as I know, two more weeks, so Slabba will get Machester (35K+H) and Penza (50K). This run sees him going up to 315 with 114 points in the latest rankings.

To get his ranking to 270, which should more or less assure his participation, he needs to get his total to something like 137. Four wins at his next two tournaments (in any possible break up) should get him there.

Sheddie · administrator

quotes from slabba on what happened:

"What happened was i came off court and just as i am walking into changin rooms my name gets called for doubles. i am like wat!!! are they kiddin i havent even come off court properly and already playing doubs!!

"i say an hr and i get it, i did play bout an hr after but finished late and got back to hotel bout 12ish then had food and went to bed bout 2ish!! then had to be up for breakfast at 9.30

"so not much sleep then went to courts for practice and played in the main heat at 3, i had big argument not to play 1st, me and Levy both did but they wudn change schedule and we both lost !"