Stakh says again that he's very happy that neither Boggo nor Bloomers are in the team.
There's an element on truth in that I guess, but it what he has to say really to try and make the team that has been selected feel worse about themselves.
I don't know, I think it would be more likely to fire them up to try and wipe the smirk off his face.
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GB on a shirt, Davis Cup still gleaming, 79 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming ... 29/11/2015 that dream came true!
Bloody typical of Murray, he demanded that the tie take place in Jockland and he then pulls out with a virus!!
The venue wasn't even half full and the majority of spectators were young kids on a freebie and German footballers (Gerryhatricks) The Scottish public were too bloody tight to pay £25 for a ticket, bring it back down to England.
While we didn't win, sadly, I very much enjoyed both matches. Especially watching Josh play as we seldom get a chance to see him unless we can travel to the challenger events. Both him and Chris gave it a good shot and didn't embarass themselves at all.
I know you have to win matches, but I still had an enjoyable afternoons tennis.
Josh seems to get so close, but can't quite manage to be consistent enough. Chris does rise to the big occasions, but I wonder why him can't do better in the Futures and Challenger events.
Yes, it was good to see Josh in action properly and we can't really complain about the effort the two of them put in. Chris got about as much as could be expected out of his match with Stakh, i.e. a set, and Josh played with a lot of fight at times, especially on the first few match points.
The problem with Josh is that he let himself get behind early in two of the sets - as someone on TV said, he only really seemed to play well when he was a long way behind, which even he said was odd for him. The less said about the end of 2nd set t/b horror show (the one time when he really was in front) the better, of course.
What yesterday did show was how unfairly Boggo has been treated over the years - he's got closer in DC matches Josh did yesterday against players ranked far higher, yet Josh is lauded for putting in a good effort (and fair enough, it was), while Alex is always thrown to the wolves when he loses even when he's played much better.
Of course, Josh did give a much. much better presser than Boggo ever has by the sounds of it, and hopefully his ability to analyse what went wrong means he'll come out and give a more effective display against Stakh, though of course Stakh is too good for that to be enough, and it might be a dead rubber by then anyway. One glimmer of hope - if we can somehow edge the doubles, Stakh's going to be aware that it's not impossible that Eaton could beat Marchenko and the pressure's all going to be on him.
What's really annoying (and it's certainly not Josh or Chris's fault) is that we have at least two players who could realistically have taken out Marchenko and they weren't even allowed to have a go in the playoffs.
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GB on a shirt, Davis Cup still gleaming, 79 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming ... 29/11/2015 that dream came true!
Count Zero wrote:i like Jamie's confidence on the team tho - 'well as soon as andy was out i was glad i wasn't in it as we would have lost anyway' cheers Jamie. You weren't the only one who noticed that comment ...
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GB on a shirt, Davis Cup still gleaming, 79 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming ... 29/11/2015 that dream came true!