I'm not sure Alex was technically eligible for an SE, but nice to see him get one anyway. Given that he would have been one of the top seeds in qualifying, it would have seemed very unfair if he'd been denied his chance to get into the main draw just because he was still in the week 7 tournament and qualifying here was starting so early.
Rumenov Payakov once lost to the Wardinator in Futures qualifying, but beat Morgan Phjillips in 3 sets last year.
-- Edited by steven at 16:07, 2009-02-22
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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!
Did he play the QF on Friday then? I thought it was Thursday but I could well have remembered it wrong.
I think it used to be the case that you had to reach at least the semis to get an SE too, but looking at the 2009 rulebook, that no longer seems to be the case.
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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!
Wow - again, unexpected.. After Alex's slump in form after his great run last year I'm still expecting him to follow up good wins by several bad losses - seems to be producing his A game much more consistently now though.
Illy (WR 706) was thrashed 0 & 1 by the Spanish SE with the incredible non-Spanish name, Rumenov Payakov (WR 896).
Better news in the doubles: Alex & his unknown (to me) Romanian partner, Anagnastopol (WR 2055), beat the unranked Bolivian/Romanian pairing, Mauricio Estivariz & Andrei-Gratian Onciu, by 4 & 2. They play the Spanish fourth seeds, Jordi Marse & Oscar Sabate (WR 1541) in the QF.