Week 19 - Challenger ($50k) - Sarasota USA

Craven91 · Lower Club Player

Week 19 - Challenger ($50k) - Sarasota USA

DavidC · Tennis legend

Magnificent result and week for James - I'll back Steven's stat about it being the first British challenger finalist on clay since Tiger Tim, as I have been following British tennis since then and I'm sure I would have noticed any other finalists. It's been a good few months for Brits based (now or previously) at the Juan Carlos Ferrero Academy, with Tom Allen's record in the juniors as well.

Smidster · Challenger level

Massive congratulations James - Such a shame he won't be able to play in French qualies.

Silver · County player

definitely epic win

Wardy ftw!

Well done that man!

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

James wrote:

Chuffed for James - although the MTF Yani bandwagon thread will be awfully disappointed!

Tough!

About time we had some payback! wink

What can I say? Absolutely bloody brilliant! This week keeps getting better in some respects! smile

I've a feeling the Ward bandwagon will grind to a halt against either Ball or Malisse, but after what James has achieved already as a qualifier this week, I suppose anything's possible...! wink

Am I right (I'm a bit nervous of asking these things after my booboo the other day!) in thinking he will pick up 42 ranking points as a result of reaching the final - not to mention a Wimby WC? Talking of which, there was no mention whatsover on the LTA site today of his triumph yesterday!

P.S. Any chance Mad could come up with a nose-thumbing icon for use against the denizens of MTF? wink In the absence of one, I guess would serve...

Count Zero · Tennis legend

if the lta dont put up a article tomorrow send them an email asking why, i did so when they failed to mention boggo beating reynolds and with 2hrs a story was up

can james get a SE anywhere?

freerider · Futures level

excellent win. and to think i had lost faith in him before he started this cklay challenger rampage

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

James will face the Aussie fourth seed, Carsten Ball, in the final. He's just beaten Xavier Malisse (5) by 2 & 3! Yikes...!

The Knight · Challenger qualifying

i like Ball...

freerider · Futures level

The Knight wrote:

i like Ball...

... but i prefer wardy!

wolf · Tennis legend

wolf wrote:

I am too surprised Yani beat Russell on clay but I still can't see Wardy winning this one. If he did would it book his Wimbledon WC slot though?

I knew me not jinxing him would pay off - I have to say now he has absolutely no chance in the final.

Cracking win from James as Yani is like a gnat you just can't shake off. The very best of luck, it would be massive if he could win it and with the big gap between runner-up and winner in the new points system you do need to take these chances.

And I don't think he can get a SE next week as he is entered into a futures in Kuwait.

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

wolf wrote:

wolf wrote:

I am too surprised Yani beat Russell on clay but I still can't see Wardy winning this one. If he did would it book his Wimbledon WC slot though?

And I don't think he can get a SE next week as he is entered into a futures in Kuwait.

Plus the fact that he would have made the cut in both the challengers had he entered, and the fact that they are in different regions so couldn't get the SE anyway.

So Ward's pretty much got the full set of reasons why he couldn't get a SE covered.

steven · Tennis legend

Fo future reference, you can get an SE in a different region if there isn't another Challenger in the same region the following week. However, the other reasons are definitely valid!

Getting back to the last GB clay court Challenger finalist being Tigger in Seoul in 1995, it dawned on me that Korea isn't exactly known for its clay court specialists, so I checked again.

On both ITF http://www.itftennis.com/mens/tournaments/tournamentoverview.asp?tournament=1010001021 and ATP http://www.atpworldtour.com/tennis/5/en/vault/archive.asp?year=1995&caltype=ch it says the 1995 Seoul Challenger was an outdoor clay court event, but it seems strange that Tigger chose to play a single clay court Challenger in October when he hadn't played a clay court event since RG qualifying that year, wouldn't play another clay court event until RG 1996 and the tournaments on either side of Seoul were on hard court and carpet.

It's possible that having played Beijing ATP just before Seoul and due to play the Beijing Challenger two weeks after it, he played a clay court Challenger because there wasn't any other option in that part of the world, but then I found that the Seoul Challengers in 1994 and 1996 were on hard courts.

However, the 1994 and 1996 Seoul Challengers were at a different time of year, suggesting that they maybe it wasn't a fixed annual event always held on the same courts and Tigger's SF and Final opponents did play clay court Challengers either side of Seoul.

I'm not sure how we'll ever find out if Seoul 1995 was really a clay court event, so let's say that "according to the ITF and ATP" James is the first GB clay court Challenger finalist since 1995. wink

Also odd is that in an article at http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/tennis/henman-ready-for-challenge-of-unknown-lee-624474.html written before Tigger took on Hyung-Taik Lee in Brighton, it says:

Tim Henman will take a good look at his opponent before the start of his semi-final in the Samsung Open at the Brighton Centre tonight, firstly to make sure somebody is actually on the other side of the net after a week of oddities, and secondly because he suspects he may have encountered Hyung-Taik Lee before. "I'm 99 per cent sure I played Lee in the semi-finals of the Seoul Challenger in 1995," the British No 1 said. "I'm sure he wore Nike clothes and used a Head racket."

The 24-year-old South Korean assured us that this was a case of mistaken identity. "It was another player from my team," he said through an interpreter, who pointed out that Lee is a fairly common name.

Guess what - they were both wrong. It was HT Lee who reached the semi-final of that Challenger, but he lost in the other semi-final to Santopadre, whom Tigger beat in the Final. LOL

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

steven wrote:

Fo future reference, you can get an SE in a different region if there isn't another Challenger in the same region the following week. However, the other reasons are definitely valid!

Getting back to the last GB clay court Challenger finalist being Tigger in Seoul in 1995, it dawned on me that Korea isn't exactly known for its clay court specialists, so I checked again.

On both ITF http://www.itftennis.com/mens/tournaments/tournamentoverview.asp?tournament=1010001021 and ATP http://www.atpworldtour.com/tennis/5/en/vault/archive.asp?year=1995&caltype=ch it says the 1995 Seoul Challenger was an outdoor clay court event, but it seems strange that Tigger chose to play a single clay court Challenger in October when he hadn't played a clay court event since RG qualifying that year, wouldn't play another clay court event until RG 1996 and the tournaments on either side of Seoul were on hard court and carpet.

It's possible that having played Beijing ATP just before Seoul and due to play the Beijing Challenger two weeks after it, he played a clay court Challenger because there wasn't any other option in that part of the world, but then I found that the Seoul Challengers in 1994 and 1996 were on hard courts.

However, the 1994 and 1996 Seoul Challengers were at a different time of year, suggesting that they maybe it wasn't a fixed annual event always held on the same courts and Tigger's SF and Final opponents did play clay court Challengers either side of Seoul.

I'm not sure how we'll ever find out if Seoul 1995 was really a clay court event, so let's say that "according to the ITF and ATP" James is the first GB clay court Challenger finalist since 1995.

Also odd is that in an article at http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/tennis/henman-ready-for-challenge-of-unknown-lee-624474.html written before Tigger took on Hyung-Taik Lee in Brighton, it says:

Tim Henman will take a good look at his opponent before the start of his semi-final in the Samsung Open at the Brighton Centre tonight, firstly to make sure somebody is actually on the other side of the net after a week of oddities, and secondly because he suspects he may have encountered Hyung-Taik Lee before. "I'm 99 per cent sure I played Lee in the semi-finals of the Seoul Challenger in 1995," the British No 1 said. "I'm sure he wore Nike clothes and used a Head racket."
The 24-year-old South Korean assured us that this was a case of mistaken identity. "It was another player from my team," he said through an interpreter, who pointed out that Lee is a fairly common name.

Guess what - they were both wrong. It was HT Lee who reached the semi-final of that Challenger, but he lost in the other semi-final to Santopadre, whom Tigger beat in the Final. LOL

Forgotten about that obscure SE rule - but either way, Ward won't be getting a SE next week.

I'm on the hunt to try and discover whether this event was actually played on clay or not - seems a very strange event to have an isolated event in Asia, on clay, in October, and given some of the players involved, it would be very surprising if they had chosen to play on clay at that time of year.

But having had a quick look at some of the more obscure players records, it does seem to suggest it was on a clay court, and the statistics on the ATP website match up with it being a clay court event (of course, that just could be automatic with it listed as a clay challenger)

Surely there must be some definative prove in the way of a comment by Henman at some point - does he have an autobiography, and if so, surely he would have made mention of the surface he won his first challenger event on?

steven · Tennis legend

I hadn't noticed that it was his first Challenger title, but you're right, it was.

His Wikipedia entry says Seoul was on clay (his only clay court title above Futures/Satellite level), as does the list of tiles at http://www.short-biographies.com/biographies/TimHenman.html but whoever compiled those lists probably got that info from ITF or ATP, so that's no help!

I don't think autobiographies are Tim's kind of thing and there are only two books about Tigger as far as I know - "England's finest", whose author may not have been interested enough in Tim back in 1995 to follow his results (so probably used ATP or ITF as a source) and "Duel for the Crown", OEM's combined Tim and Greg bio, which says little of note happened in autumn 1995 apart from Greg's spectacular multiple choke in the final of the national championships at Telford!

Can't write to Tim either - his website no longer exists - and given his recollection of who his semi-final opponent was, I'm not sure I'd trust his answer anyway. LOL

However, steveg's records go back to 1995 and earlier, and his results sheet for the tournament (now at http://tennis.webz.cz/res/1995/ch-Seoul-43.txt ) says it was on clay too. I've asked him whether it is likely to have been compiled at the time (in which case I'd be confident it was correct) or at a later date from ATP/ITF records. I'll let you know what he says!