Jonny Marray and Ken Skupski are here also and are 7th / 8th seeds resp. in qualies, they have a bye in round 1 - check OOP link in first post.

 Qualifying Singles Draw 




-- Edited by mjd at 22:08, 2008-10-03

Aah you edited it!!

Tim and Greg note :- Youre never too old for Tennis!

A wildcard into the main draw has been given to Rodolphe Gilbert (FRA) Birth date 12 Dec 1968

He reached WR 61 in 1992, currently 1146 - Is he planning a comeback? He has played a few futures plus challenger qualies this year.

Cauvard won his QR1 match so:

QR2: (q8) Ken Skupski WR 557 v Simon Cauvard (FRA) WR 1076 - later today

QR2: (q7) Jonny Marray WR 551 v Baptiste Bayet (FRA) WR 933 or Olivier Charroin (FRA) WR 613 - Sunday

They obviously didn't manage to fit Ken's QR2 match in today as scheduled so it has been held over until Sunday. The main draw is out too, with the Brits facing a few 'old favourites':

L32 Q1: Richard Bloomfield WR 290 v Qualifier (winner likely to face top seed Andreas Beck)
L32 Q2: (4) Alex Bogdanovic WR 171 v Sebastien de Chaunac (FRA) WR 247
L32 Q2: Alex Slabinsky WR 292 v Gary Lugassy (FRA) WR 259
L32 Q4: (7) Josh Goodall WR 201 v Dieter Kindlmann (GER) WR 255

De Chaunac beat Bloomers 1-6 7-6(7) 6-1 in January, which alarmingly is a rather Boggo-esque losing scoreline. He has also beaten Big Arv, Aucks, Mackin & Del in straights in recent years as well as getting a w/o against Greg in Marseille in 2005! In fact, even excluding the w/o, de Chaunac has a 10-match winning streak against Brits since he lost 9-7 in a final set tiebreak to Mackin more than eight years ago.

Lugassy has lost to Boggo (in Granby) and Bloomers this year but has a winning record overall from his dozens of matches against Brits (he used to play in almost every GB Future and Challenger on offer!) - Slabba met him once, back in August 2005, when Lugassy won 4 & 3, but Alex has improved since.

Kindlmann, of course, beat Josh in the New Delhi Challenger Final in August 7-6(3) 6-3 but lost a tight match to Bloomers in Kyoto in March and a less tight match to him in Wolfsburg qualifying the month before. He has also beaten Mackin twice and Boggo in recent years.

-- Edited by steven at 21:08, 2008-10-04

Count Zero wrote:

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............ ill have to see who blooms ends up with.

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My prediction > Having avoided the no 1 seed this time only just though, if Jonny or Ken qualify look no further


Edit (surprised no one commented on my 'deliberate mistake' with  names)


-- Edited by mjd at 09:03, 2008-10-05

Qualifying has moved indoors to Chartres today because of rain (and here was me thinking this was an indoor tournament in the first place!) and it has not been a good start:

QR2: (q8) Ken Skupski WR 557 lost to Simon Cauvard (FRA) WR 1076 by 2 & 4

This is the Simon Cauvard who is 22, has never been in the top 1000 and has lost in straight sets to Chris Priddle, Josh Milton and Kyle Brassington this year. Having said that, he beat Rushby, Smith & Flan in a GB Future and took a set off Bloomers in Grenoble. Not someone Ken should be losing 2 & 4 to though, you wouldn't think.