Verdasco on Murray...he will be No2 at the end of the year....

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/tennis/article6087677.ece

Drew wrote:

---

Really really good piece from OEM... 'Fire in the hole.....'

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/tennis/article6127210.ece?token=null&offset=12&page=2

---

Great article - dont forget to page back to page 1.

It is really worrying that everyone can see these problems and failings - except those 'runing the show', I expect they are all too busy checking their pension funds!

It also answers the Wimby/ Boggo WC question - ".....only those with a ranking inside 250, with no proviso about how many wild cards they have received in the past, will be considered for a place in the main draw..."

 

Quite true!

Also, as we know The AELTC actually have the final say and if they believed in what visitors to Wimbledon preferred  they could still give ALL remaining WC's to British players - extremely unlikely I know!

From Article-
"The latest to walk away is Carl Maes, the head of women's tennis. The official line is that he resigned though the Net Post suspects he did it with a gun to his head ...................was Maes not handed a £25,000 bonus in November for a job (almost) well done? Why the heck would anyone turn their backs on that ?"


£25k - that accounts for one of the dropped UK events!

The Net Post this week at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/tennis/article6217593.ece covers:

Tennis in Serbia and the new Belgrade tournament

An detailed look at the issues surrounding the AUS v IND DC tie - the full post from Lleyton Hewitt about it that he refers to can be found at http://www.lleytonandbechewitt.com/content/view/260/29/

The fact that Sky Sports managed to attract as manyu as 15000 viewers for the 'relatively unmemorable' R1 match between Potty v Tricky last week - "It is another example of tennis's astonishing popularity, a fact that is often lost on those in charge of certain sports pages." (nice one! )

OEM got the same reply as people here to  queries about the arrangements for wild cards. Includes another gratuitous dig at Boggo.

A paragraph on Wardy's run in Pereira - someone noticed at last!

And finally ... "We have seen it hundreds of times, the two players are at the net, the umpire flicks the coin into the air, someone makes the choice and whoever wins the toss, decides either to serve or receive. Andreas Seppi of Italy, Rafael Nadal's first opponent at the Masters in Rome had an original take. He called right, was asked what he wanted to and shrugged his shoulders. Who knows if it is better to serve or receive against Nadal on clay - or whether a better option might have been to stay at home?"

 

 

At the end of a daily mail article about Murray going up in the world rankings:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-1176945/No-sweat-Murray-goes-world.html

----------
Brit of the week (an Andy Murray-free zone)...

Alex Bogdanovic beat world No 78 Bobby Reynolds in the first round of an $85,000 Challenger in Greece while James Ward reached the quarters of the $35,000 Challenger in Colombia.

But this weeks best was from Katie O Brien, again heading towards the top 100 with a semi-final finish at the $100,000 Soweto Open in Johannesburg.
----------

would be great if they keep that going, but the cynical side of me says it will only happen if they have an Andy Murray story to tack it on to. 

I am by no means trying to belittle Dan Evans' great results of late, but I find it absolutely astonishing that at #320 he is the highest ranked 18 year old in the world.

Whilst it has a nice ring to it, and he can milk it for another 2 weeks, in context its not a massive thing to put on your CV - its not like there's a load of 18years olds ranked in the top 50 and he's cream of the crop.

Kinda harks back to that old sound-bite trotted out by many a british player - "i'd rather be british #8 and in the top 50 than british #1 and ranked 200."

Count Zero wrote:

---

At the end of a daily mail article about Murray going up in the world rankings:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-1176945/No-sweat-Murray-goes-world.html

----------
Brit of the week (an Andy Murray-free zone)...

Alex Bogdanovic beat world No 78 Bobby Reynolds in the first round of an $85,000 Challenger in Greece while James Ward reached the quarters of the $35,000 Challenger in Colombia.

But this weeks best was from Katie O Brien, again heading towards the top 100 with a semi-final finish at the $100,000 Soweto Open in Johannesburg.
----------

would be great if they keep that going, but the cynical side of me says it will only happen if they have an Andy Murray story to tack it on to. 

---

It's been going for a couple of weeks now.  They mentioned Cox's runs in Turkey and I think one week when not much was happening there was a line about Broady reaching a QF in a 10K.