L32: James Ward WR 209 v (6) Sebastian Decoud (ARG) WR 158
After making the trip out to Colombia, Wardy could have done with avoiding a seed in R1, though Decoud is not the worst one he could have got. The Argentine seems to be even worse on grass than James, having lost to Cuevas in Wimbledon QR1, but this tournament is of course on clay, and Decoud won the Rome Challenger in April and beat Fognini and Calleri to reach the QFs of Viña del Mar ATP in February.
Decoud has a 5-0 straight sets record against Brits, the most recent being a 2 & 3 win against Josh Milton in Edinburgh in 2007, the others coming against Blake, Hanlin, Fleming & Khatib, though the middle three all took him to a tiebreak, and of course Wardy is significanntly better than any of these five players on clay.
Also, Decoud did lose to Michael Lammer WR 208 in Rijeka last week!
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Looking at Decoud's record this year and very little about it makes too much sense. He's had some very good wins and is clearly a clay court specialist, but then goes and loses matches to some very average players and has at times struggled to beat players who are clueless on clay, and has even lost to some of them.
Don't know what to expect from him at all, but it's a decent chance for Ward to record an upset if he does manage to hit his best form. Got a good feeling about this draw for some reason and fancy Ward to win this match.
James has teamed up with another Argentine, Diego Alvarez, for the doubles. They take on the Brazilian pair, Ricardo Hocevar & André Miele, in the first round.
James has teamed up with another Argentine, Diego Alvarez, for the doubles. They take on the Brazilian pair, Ricardo Hocevar & André Miele, in the first round.
James should have been on court in the doubles 2½ hours ago, but Bogotá caught British cricket disease today: "blsp", i.e. bad light stopped play! Miele hasn't quite completed his R1 singles match, which was first on the centre court...!