Week 27 - Futures F1 ($15K) - Damascus, Syria

alex03maccy · Grand Slam Champion

Week 27 - Futures F1 ($15K) - Damascus, Syria

alex03maccy · Grand Slam Champion

RE: Week 27 - Futures F1 ($10K) - Damascus, Syria

steven · Tennis legend

L32: Gregory Howe WR 1259 v Peerakit Siributwong (THA) WR 1206

Siributwong's only previous match against a Brit was a 3 & 2 win against Niall Angus in New Delhi earlier this year. Sometime AM.com poster and GB's oldest ranked player (though he doesn't thank me for calling him that!

) is a teacher in the Middle East who plays during the school holidays, trying to gain enough points to sneak into qualifying for the ATPs held in his region. Given that his ranking is only based on a few weeks' play last year, I would hope he'd have too much for his opponent, who at 18 is less than half his age.

seagull · Hall of fame

Amazingly enough this is actually a $15K

steven · Tennis legend

RE: Week 27 - Futures F1 ($15K) - Damascus, Syria

steven · Tennis legend

L32: Gregory Howe WR 1259 lost to Peerakit Siributwong (THA) WR 1206 by 4 & 2 cry

The Knight · Challenger qualifying

Howe on earth did he lose that?

The Hoose · Satellite level

he got thaid down. it happens. get over it.

Happycynic · Pro player

It was a road to damascas thing.

gh · Social player

If you want to know what happened to British tennis in Syria this week, then here it is. The half Thai/ half Moroccan Brit Faris went down in QR1 in extremely windy conditions against a tough Croation player who hit high topspin down the centre of the court frustrating the more attacking Brit. It got worse for Britain in the opening ceremony where I decided to watch the Wimbledon final and Faris tried to sneak in with the Thai players- leaving the girl holding the Union Jack flag alone. (Faris was later told he was British and to move.)In my match against the younger Thai brother, his flat groundstrokes were a handful as they skidded off the quick hardcourts in the heat and he controlled the baseline rallies. I'd like to use the excuse of food poisoning, but the Thai player had it also to even it out. Unfortunately, the worst hit was Faris who sat in the stands today with a towel over his head. He's got 3 days to recover. I'm out of here, so it's up to him to make amends for our showing this week.

Happycynic · Pro player

Nice to hear the report, Greg.

Travelling is rarely dull.... hope the stomach sorts itself soon.

The Knight · Challenger qualifying

gh wrote:

If you want to know what happened to British tennis in Syria this week, then here it is. The half Thai/ half Moroccan Brit Faris went down in QR1 in extremely windy conditions against a tough Croation player who hit high topspin down the centre of the court frustrating the more attacking Brit. It got worse for Britain in the opening ceremony where I decided to watch the Wimbledon final and Faris tried to sneak in with the Thai players- leaving the girl holding the Union Jack flag alone. (Faris was later told he was British and to move.)In my match against the younger Thai brother, his flat groundstrokes were a handful as they skidded off the quick hardcourts in the heat and he controlled the baseline rallies. I'd like to use the excuse of food poisoning, but the Thai player had it also to even it out. Unfortunately, the worst hit was Faris who sat in the stands today with a towel over his head. He's got 3 days to recover. I'm out of here, so it's up to him to make amends for our showing this week.

Thanks for the report Greg.

I'd also like to say my pun earlier was just in jest, i didn't actually mean the sentiments

steven · Tennis legend

Thanks very much for posting the report, Greg, even after seeing what a pun-fest this thread had become! The things you have to put up with in the hunt for the odd ranking point! (I mean the food poisoning, not the puns) - half-Thai half-Moroccan is an unusual mix but I still can't believe Faris didn't realise he was supposed to be representing GB! LOL

Good luck if you're playing any more events this summer.

gh · Social player

No worries. Don't worry- Faris knew he plays under GBR, he was just having fun in the opening ceremony. Hit with him one morning- nice guy with an aggressive attacking game that will gell somewhere down the line. Whole opening ceremony with packed crowd, fireworks, attractive girls holding up flags (they even found the Solomon Island flag) was sureal considering it's a future. Syria probably starved of international sport.
Georgia next week- and hopefully I'll take that luck offered thanks.

steven · Tennis legend

Just shows you can make even a Future into a big event if you really want to. There must be more incentive to do so when you don't have any Challengers in your country let alone ATPs, but I'm sure more people could be attracted along to at least Challengers over here if they were advertised properly and people got to see how high the standard can be at them.

By picking Georgia, hopefully you've created some of your own luck. The likely top 6 seeds are all top 500 though (and generally stronger than the seeds at Syria F2), so avoiding them in R1 is probably key!