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

Mikeduke · County player

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

steven · Tennis legend

Wow, brilliant, and well done for sending the email - I thought if they werent't answering the phone, they wouldn't be answering emails either, so didn't bother trying. ashamed The first match seemed to finish very late, so I wonder if Wardy v DdV was moved to the other court and that's why it never appeared on live scores.

As previously hinted at, James is the first Brit to reach a Challenger semi on clay since Alan Mackin did it in Aschaffenburg back in 2004 and I'm so pleased he did it with a real win rather than a w/d after all. This win should take James up to about WR 260 too.

I'm not 100% confident about this next stat, but I don't think a Brit has reached a clay court Challenger Final since Tim Henman won the Seoul Challenger way back in 1995, and with the form Yani is in this week, James is going to have his work cut out if he wants go a step further.

Yani's recent results against Brits are a 4 & 4 win v Evo in Bath in March, and an 8-6 in the final set t/b win against Bloomers at the same event, but he lost 3 & 4 in Evo in Tipton a week earlier.

-- Edited by steven on Friday 15th of May 2009 05:38:19 AM

Salmon · Tennis legend

Wow, can't believe Yani beat Russell on clay. Ward surely has a chance here...

freerider · Futures level

excellent run!

stevemcqueen · Futures qualifying

That is five matches this week, I like the consistency! I've just checked the rankings page on the ATP site, I'm suprised that his week#s work is only going to improve his ranking by around 20 places or so. I saw Yani playing doubles in Bath - he looked a neat player, never seen Ward play.

mjd · Challenger qualifying

Good results for James who had to follow Andy's example and pay his own way in Spain, or at least his Taxi driver father did, due to being unable to get support from the LTA who I guess will now be very keen to claim how well 'they' are doing!
I wonder if James would have done as well if he had have been accepted by the LTA earlier and not forced to seek his coaching in Spain? So perhaps they did him a good turn after all !
Good luck tomorrow James.

alex03maccy · Grand Slam Champion

well done james, though now i will have to wait until sunday night to find out if you got any further.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Shhh wrote:

James won 3-6, 6-1, 6-4

Excellent!

I'm so pleased my getting ahead of myself after Wednesday's result didn't put the Indian sign on his chances of actually reaching the SF! biggrin

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

Excellent win for James, and he seems to have found his form on the clay courts at the moment - just a shame that he isn't going to make the cut for RG qualies as on this form he'd have a half-decent chance of qualifying.

Yani looks to be playing well this week, but he is definately beatable and it would be excellent to see a Brit in a clay-court challenger final.