FD's comment on the Black Forest Open doubles thread last week:
Just isn't happening for Auckland at all, and this is a bad loss to have, as Scherrer is a solid doubles player, and the draw was opened up for them to go deep this week.
Well, all I can say is that Aucks must be a glutton for punishment, as he's popped up at this tournament on red clay in Holland, this time with Dick Norman! They're the second seeds & play two little-known (to me, at any rate ) Dutchmen, Roy Bruggeling & Bas van der Valk. Surely Aucks can at least make the QFs this week. Marco Crugnola & Stefano Ianni (ITA/ITA) or Remko de Rijke & Peter Lucassen (NED/NED), if they do...
Couldn't find out very much but... Roy is 19, born in Delft and is left-handed. Bas was also born in Delft, is also left-handed and is 24. SR is 1262 and doubles 690.
Even I haven't heard of them and I've trawled through more ITF player activity pages than most people have had hot dinners. *embarrassed*
Why embarrassed? I think I may actually have seen van der Valk's name mentioned fleetingly at some point in the dim & distant past! The only reason why I say that is that I was a bit of a fan of Thames TV's 70s adaptations of Nicholas Freeling's crime novels about a certain Amsterdam detective of the same name (showing my age now! ), with Barry Foster in the title role & a very catchy theme tune that was later hijacked by whichever advertising agency it was that won the contract for Oranjeboom [= "orange tree"!!!] Dutch lager, so it kinda registered...
BTW, I've definitely heard of Remko de Rijke's partner!
Stircrazy wrote: I think I may actually have seen van der Valk's name mentioned fleetingly at some point in the dim & distant past! The only reason why I say that is that I was a bit of a fan of Thames TV's 70s adaptations of Nicholas Freeling's crime novels about a certain Amsterdam detective of the same name (showing my age now! ), with Barry Foster in the title role
I remember it well - and trying to get the kids settled for the night before vdV started