Alex Bogdanovic v Alex Peya They have never met on the main tour but Peya has beaten Boggo twice in Challengers dating back 3 and 4 years respectfully. In both those occasions Peya never dropped a set.
Bogdanovic appears to be the better server winning more points, more aces, fewer double faults and crucially more break points saved than Peya. However it appears that the Austrians return game has yielded more results this year than Boggos. Peya seems to create slightly more break point chances and takes more of them than Boggo has done this year.
Peya does not have a great record on grass losing in straights in the first round of Wimbledon this year after squeezing past Richard Bloomfield in qualification. Jamie Baker has also beaten Peya twice. (AO qualies 08 and Queens 2007). Peya seems to have more joy against the lower ranked Brits beating Bloomfield twice in 2007 but on both occasions he needed 3 sets.
Both Boggo and Peya seem comfortable playing from the baseline and both can hit winners from the back of the court. Boggo didnt come to the net a lot when being beaten by Melzer on Saturday. He may have to adjust that today. He needs to mix it up with Peya and try and dominate from the start. If Peya gets on top in the first hour then Boggo will have to do something he has never done. Win in 5 sets.
I know the crowd will do their best to get behind Boggo. However some of the media are already writing Boggos obituary. One line from the Mail on Sunday Alex has the worst record on anyone, past or present, having lost 8 times on the fabled grass courts of SW19. Whether that is true or not its not the point. Why cant all the press just give the cause a little bit more support? I can just feel some Jurnos have their media-passes at the grind stone preparing lethal darts for the post match interviews.
I cannot believe how little minded British tennis 'fans'! are Boggo just going to start and ait seems that 50% of these so called fans have gone home - Why bother to go and watch only Andy's match ? Surely Boggo needs the support more than Andy did. Perhaps they have only slipped out for a quick lunch!
I guess that many were at lunch as there are more there now Boggo one set up but just broken in 2nd - He is playing pretty good though providing he doesnt let this break get to him.
Have to agree with commentators - Boggo just lost his second game in set 4 and the lack of team and crowd support when he needed it most was shocking. Why is everyone there if not to support all our players? Alex is trying really hard. Pretty tough for him at the moment.
I suppose it was hard for the crowd to stay supportive and optimistic when it was pretty obvious that we were going to lose - and by set 4 that was pretty obvious. Alex just doesn't seem to be able to keep his standard up over more than a couple of sets - of course, he is not used to playing best of five. I said to my other half before the match, that I thought to have any chance of winning he had to win in straight sets, and sadly I was right.
Alex played very well in parts and shows what he is capable of but as was said in the earlier commentary there is not a lot of difference between a player 140 and 40 mainly determination and self belief (and the latter appears to be the problem). I hope that this doesn't destroy Alex and wonder if he is already on flight to Grenoble, where I would hope they'd slot him in on Tuesday rather than Monday.
