Week 5 ATP - Johannesburg, South Africa

wolf · Tennis legend

RE: Week 5 ATP - Johannesburg, South Africa

Silver · County player

Wow! Well done Russ

Good stuff either way. Unranked Brits making the main draw of a tour event?

UNHEARD OF!

I almost find it quite amusing actually. I wonder why some of the other Brits didn't try their hand here too. Little bit of a missed opportunity on that part actually but ah well!

Smidster · Challenger level

Congratulations Ross

The $4k will do no harm - especially as he probably only entered as going there for dubs

wolf · Tennis legend

L32: Ross Hutchins UNR v (7) Kristof Vliegen (BEL) WR 85

Ross not playing either singles or doubles tommorow.

freerider · Futures level

ross in 3

indiana · Tennis legend

wolf wrote:

Drew wrote:

Lloyd wil luv this. IF he wins another match then it makes hutch a shoe in as an allrounder for the dc imo...dubs and singles as back-up. Makes choosing him over jm more justified.

Don't be ridiculuos. When you are picking a single doubles specialist singles play should in no way come into consideration. I would pick Hutch as it stands but because at the moment he is on way better form.

Err,frank but true smile

Apparently only one doubles specialist is being picked. That person must basically be judged just on doubles form, and particularly Men's Doubles form, especially when the two being considered are Hutchins and J Murray, neither of who have any justifiable call on remotely being considered Davis Cup singles players.

All rounder ? Get serious

But at the moment, yes, I would pick Hutchin for the doubes spot. And really well done on his qualifying in singles here.

indiana · Tennis legend

freerider wrote:

ross in 3

And in the real world, Vliegen in straight.

Yes, throw egg or whatever else in my face in the highly unlikely event it proves otherwise smile

imoen · Admin: Moderator+Tennis Legend

Lovely to see Ross wins a couple of singles matches, that can't hurt his confidence in the doubles.

Can I just confim that he's playing with Butorac here? I've gotten myself quite confused, I thought he and Huss were sticking together for the year. Either way I'll be happy, I'm still quite happily following Booty as much as any of the British doubles guys.

Someone asked a few pages ago whether Hutchins had had to retire from singles because of a sweating/dehydration problem. The answer to that is yes, but I don't think it was because he couldn't last one match, I think it was more a case of realism and saying that because of this issue he wasn't going to be able to forge a career from singles playing consistently week after week at the level he wanted to get to.

Good luck to him against Vliegen, but I'd be very surprised if it was more than a straight 36 46 kind of loss. Still, there's always the doubles and a nice tournament win here should cement his place in the DC.

As for whether this singles jaunt should factor into the DC question, I think the answer is yes, of course picking a doubles player should be almost entirely about doubles ability and form, but having a player who simply can't play singles (the kind of player Jamie is) is far more risky than having one that can if he has to. Therefore, I think that this burst of singles form should be at the back of Lloyd's mind at the very least. And if he does manage a miracle in the first round then (assuming Murray doesn't win every tournament between now and then) it should seal the deal in my opinion.

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

Well done to Ross on qualifying here, which must rank as one of the most surprising results of the season, even with the very weak qualfiying draw.

Good luck to him against Vliegen, although I'd be surprised if he got anywhere near winning the match, but he does have a decent shot of doing well in the doubles here, which I presume is still his main focus

S&V · Club Coach

I was really surprised to see this, nice one Ross.

wolf · Tennis legend

Ross playing both singles and doubles tomorrow. With play starting at 11am GMT his singles is 2nd match on Court 1 while his doubles is 4th on Centre Court not before 5pm GMT.

helki · Futures qualifying

Tough day for Ross.

I hope he's successful in both his singles and doubles matches.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

wolf wrote:

Ross playing both singles and doubles tomorrow. With play starting at 11am GMT his singles is 2nd match on Court 1 while his doubles is 4th on Centre Court not before 5pm GMT.

The UK's not the only country with weather problems! The only difference is that it's rain that's driving a coach & horses through the OoP timings in Joburg: play was suspended after only half an hour or so! cry

Smidster · Challenger level

Hutch is being held up by the weather n Jburg

Match before him is 4-3 in opening set and currently on a rain delay.

Drew · Feb 3, 2009

wolf wrote:

Drew wrote:

Lloyd wil luv this. IF he wins another match then it makes hutch a shoe in as an allrounder for the dc imo...dubs and singles as back-up. Makes choosing him over jm more justified.

Don't be ridiculuos. When you are picking a single doubles specialist singles play should in no way come into consideration. I would pick Hutch as it stands but because at the moment he is on way better form.

As usual when someone quotes a post and starts there own 'Don't be ridiculuos' (ignoring the slight spelling error) I always leave my response for a few days.

Don't be ridiculuos - is a complete put down to someone elses opinion. Elevating your own opinion over someone elses in this way on something that is arguable at best is 'not ridiculous' is fairly narrow minded.

Indiana's response...

Err,frank but true

Apparently only one doubles specialist is being picked. That person must basically be judged just on doubles form, and particularly Men's Doubles form, especially when the two being considered are Hutchins and J Murray, neither of who have any justifiable call on remotely being considered Davis Cup singles players.

All rounder ? Get serious

But at the moment, yes, I would pick Hutchin for the doubes spot. And really well done on his qualifying in singles here.

Fair enough Indiana but if JL can pick a dubs players that has perhaps just qualified for an ATP event / beat / ran close (match held up due to rain so far today!) a top 100 player then that at least must be considered as a serious 'plus' point for Hutch. And what I meant by Allrounder really is that if the second singles player had a melt down / got injured then having Hutch in there over JM would be advantageous.

If It came down to a few places between JM and RH then at the moment RH would be in pole position. Both have got some points to defend over the next 4 weeks so their rankings could be fairly close end March.

Bethan's response...

As for whether this singles jaunt should factor into the DC question, I think the answer is yes, of course picking a doubles player should be almost entirely about doubles ability and form, but having a player who simply can't play singles (the kind of player Jamie is) is far more risky than having one that can if he has to. Therefore, I think that this burst of singles form should be at the back of Lloyd's mind at the very least. And if he does manage a miracle in the first round then (assuming Murray doesn't win every tournament between now and then) it should seal the deal in my opinion.

My initial post made via a phone just after I heard the Ross had made it into the MD should have read something like the above...much clearer and probably if mine had been something like Bethan's Wolf perhaps would not have used the 'R' word

Thanks for the debate