Week 9 - Futures F6 (15k) - McAllen TX, USA

steven · Tennis legend

Week 9 - Futures F6 (15k) - McAllen TX, USA

Craven91 · Lower Club Player

I thought top 150 playes werent aloud to play futures

The Knight · Challenger qualifying

Craven91 wrote:

I thought top 150 playes werent aloud to play futures

Maybe they're only not allowed DE into a Futures, they have to qualify

steven · Tennis legend

In the ITF rules, it says the top 100 players aren't allowed to play in Futures. Players ranked 101-150 can't enter Futures either but may apply (at least 2 weeks in advance) for and accept a wild card for a Future other than a 10K.

A Future at 15K (or equivalently 10K+H) level or above may offer one wild card to a player ranked 101-150.

So, you're almost right, but there is this loophole. However, I can't understand why a 100-150 player who applied for a WC two weeks in advance would be given a WC for qualifying rather than the main draw. confuse

It seems particularly unfair to those who may have made a long trip to get there and then find themselves in his section of the draw, though I guess for an unranked player, the chance to play a top 150 player might be quite exciting!

mjd · Challenger qualifying

Strange isn't it that Donald Young who almost missed out on Futures, having in early days been given lots of wild cards into ATP and Challengers, much to Tim Henmans disgust, remember? - Now 2-3 years on here he is applying for entry into futures - 'It's a funny old world' !!!!!!!

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

The Don showing up here, in qualifying nonetheless, is one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen.

Guess he's just playing here to get some match practice in as he hasn't had a great start to the season and just wants some wins and confidence, which he really should be getting in futures qualifying.

steven · Tennis legend

QR1: Chris Priddle UNR beat Kristepher Elien (ISV) UNR by 1 & 1

QR2: Chris Priddle UNR v (q10) Yu Wang Jr (CHN) WR 1181
QR2: (q5) Burnham Arlidge WR 862 v Clifford Malivert (USA) UNR
QR2: (q9) Kyle Brassington WR 1126 v Clint Boling (USA) UNR

American Harry Fowler gets the first chance to take down 'the Don'.

steven · Tennis legend

QR2: Chris Priddle UNR beat (q10) Yu Wang Jr (CHN) WR 1181 by 2 & 3 biggrin

QR2: (q5) Burnham Arlidge WR 862 beat Clifford Malivert (USA) UNR by 1 & 2 smile

QR2: (q9) Kyle Brassington WR 1126 lost to Clint Boling (USA) UNR by 2 & 4 bleh

Fantastic win for Chris, though since he has a top 400 player in the FQR, I doubt he's going to benefit from it that much, except in confidence terms. Can Burnham get revenge for Kyle?

FQR: Chris Priddle UNR v (q2) Vladimir Obradovic (SRB) WR 389
FQR: (q5) Burnham Arlidge WR 862 v Clint Boling (USA) UNR

Ringer watch

The Don got past Harry Fowler (though 4 & 2 against an unranked player isn't too impressive when you're WR 130) but will have to beat an unranked Chinese player who has double-bagelled both opponents so far if he is to qualify.

freerider · Futures level

most encouraguing defeat of the season thus far

OBRADOVIC, Vladimir [2]
7-6(4) 5-7 7-5

burnham also won in 3

freerider · Futures level

got unranked qualifier gary sacks in rd 1.

think there is something to this sacks bloke - ill chek him out in a minute

freerider · Futures level

sacks used to be ranked in the 900's

steven · Tennis legend

FQR: Chris Priddle UNR lost to (q2) Vladimir Obradovic (SRB) WR 389 by 7-6(4) 5-7 7-5 cry

FQR: (q5) Burnham Arlidge WR 862 beat Clint Boling (USA) UNR by 7-5 2-6 6-4 smile

Switching to 2 March rankings for the main draw:

L32: (Q) Burnham Arlidge WR 859 v (Q) Gary Sacks (RSA) UNR - Wednesday

Like freerider, I can't believe Chris got that close, that's a great effort

- unfortunately he's only 6th on the LL list, so almost certainly won't get in.

Obradovic has gone into the main draw as the no. 6 seed and is likely to face the winner of Burnham's match in R2. The Don qualified too, btw, and is the no. 1 seed in the main draw.

Sacks lost to Jonny Kinsella last year soon after he came back from a year out. He either chooses not to play on the circuit very often (a la Flan) or has been very unfortunate with injuries over the years. He beat WR 738 by 3 & 1 to qualify, so is not to be taken lightly, though he did take three sets to beat an unranked American in the previous round.

-- Edited by steven at 23:01, 2009-03-02

steven · Tennis legend

Someone on AM.com asked for info on Burnham yesterday - here's what I dug up, quite a lot of which people here will already know:

Burnham Arlidge

Burnham is one of the Brits that least is known about, but there's a reason for that - like Laura Robson, he was born in Melbourne, Australia, but unlike Laura, he remained in Australia until his early teens and it looks like he competed for Victoria State until at least 2003. In fact, this makes him more like Johanna Konta, who is still playing for AUS while awaiting British citizenship.

He started playing Satellites and Futures at the end of 2004 and regularly won matches (he even beat Dan Evans in straight sets in qualifying for the Leeds Future in early 2005, when he was 16 and Dan was 14, and still has a 2-0 H2H over him) but did not make it to a main draw until March 2006 (at his 28th attempt) and his first ranking point didn't come until June last year, when he beat Kyle Brassington in the Dublin Future.

Having gained his first ranking point after three and half years of trying, he seemed to get quite a taste for them, reaching the QFs in Limerick the following week.

He then started playing German league tennis for Wedel (quite a few of the Brits play French or German league tennis at the weekends to help fund themselves on the ITF circuit) and there's a pic of him on the Wedel site - 2nd from left, 4th pic down.

Apparently his debut was not too successful - the fourth paragraph of this newspaper report, roughly translated (and subject to me making mistakes when translating, corrections welcome!), says:

"In addition, the debut of Burnham Arlidge was unsuccessful. Wedel had "flown in" the top English player specially. "The other teams nearly all had top foreign players. Given that it was such an important match, we also used that option. In fact, he didn't win a point (*), but thanks to his participation, we all slipped one place further down," explained [team captain] Felix Geschke.

And to think some of us found the the way JL hung Boggo out to dry a bit harsh!

(*) I assume this means he didn't win the match and hence a point for his team not that his opponent won every game to love, but who knows!

Anyway, that experience didn't have a lasting effect and he continued to win the odd match in Futures main draws and gradually climb the rankings. The highlight of his year, reaching the semis at the Sunderland Future in November before being knocked out by eventual winner Colin Fleming, helped him finish 2008 in the top 900 and using the methodology here, he was the 5th most improved Brit of the year and the highest GB new entrant, unless you count Colin Fleming himself, who was a re-entrant rather than a completely new one.

tennisfan84 · Junior player

Ohh, I have a bit of insider knowledge on Burham. I presume he committed to GB when his father remarried a British lady. His step-mother is a secondary school head at a sports college based in Bristol. Apparently, he has been committed to playing full time tennis for several years now. I only know this because it was my former school. I've seen him play a couple of time and although a tall chap and good athlete, his strokes are very unothodox especially his forehand which is almost a flat slap. He has done well to go as high as he has. Definitely a Matt Illingworth type of player (working hard rather than living off a lot of god given talent.

wolf · Tennis legend

That's one hell of a tournament for Chris showing real promise with those results. Wonder if he will come back for Tipton as it is sort of his home event.