Week 31 Challenger - Campos do Jordão ($50k+H) - Brazil

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

RE: Week 31 Challenger - Campos do Jordão ($50k+H) - Brazil

helki · Futures qualifying

The Magician Santoro wrote:

Supoib Wardy, Zeballos next? Tricky one that

Nope! Groth or Chela (3).

The Magician Santoro · Top national player

Ha momentary lapse there! Don't know what i was thinking

The Magician Santoro · Top national player

So what's everyone's opinions on Groth and Chela?

The Knight · Challenger qualifying

Well Chela is a former top 20 player and i still feel capable of some quality tennis, Groth is a big server and very dangerous. On hardcourts i don't expect James to beat either

steven · Tennis legend

That win takes Wardy ahead of Josh in the race for GB no. 2 again - if only it could eventually be decided by the semi-final! LOL

johnnylad · Tennis legend

Nice one Wardy. That were a proper R1 banan skin

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Stircrazy wrote:

The Magician Santoro wrote:

Supoib Wardy, Zeballos next? Tricky one that

Er, no: his second-round opponent will be Sam Groth (AUS) or the third seed & WC, Juan Ignacio Chela (CHI). Goody, on the othe hand, could play Zeballos in the QF if he gets past Guez & Zeballos past Felder.

And 'twill be Chela, who prevailed by 4-6 6-4 7-6(2). bleh

steven · Tennis legend

It can't be often that we have three Brits surviving R1 in Challengers outside the UK! Good to see that Chela didn't win easily today too.

Vandenburg · Futures level

lol chela! i lose track of all theses argies, who dopes and who doesnt n who gets injured etc
is chela clean druggy or been injured for a bit?

The Knight · Challenger qualifying

yep back in 01 he was a druggie. and he spat at Hewitt too lol. not that i blame him on the second one

puerta and coria were also resident druggies if i remember. Fat Dave kept off them though, you would have thought he would have gone down the Shane Warne route...

-- Edited by The Knight on Tuesday 4th of August 2009 10:13:18 PM

Vandenburg · Futures level

im not even botherd about the falklands, i just dont like argies, i mean maradona was prob the worst, i mean hand of god!!!!

steven · Tennis legend

L16: (7) Josh Goodall WR 189 v David Guez (FRA) WR 219 (CH: 153 in 2007) - 1st on Court 2 at 14.00 BST
L16: James Ward WR 206 v (3) Juan Ignacio Chela (ARG) WR 159 (CH: 15 in 2004) - 2nd on Court 1 at about 15.30 BST

Josh v Guez

Guez managed a hat-trick of Brit-bashes (Arlidge/Bains/Smethurst) on his way to winning the Newcastle Future on clay in May and has since won two more clay court Futures in France. He moved back to hard courts in Belo Horizonte last week, reaching the QFs before going out to Zampieri WR 268.

Recent form against Challenger level Brits includes a win and a loss against Blommers and a loss to Boggo. Josh is 0-2 against him, having lost 3 & 2 in Rabat (on clay, i.e. Guez's surface) and 7-6(4) 3-6 6-3 in Metz, both in the middle of a 9-match Brit-bashing streak which Bloomers ended early this year.

If Josh is in as good form as it sounds like he is, he ought to be even more competitive with Guez than in Metz last year and he certainly has a more winnable match than James ...

Wardy v Chela

... that's because Wardy plays Chela, though the former world no. 15 has done no better than a Challenger semi (in Rimini) recently, before this tournament he had only played two matches on hard courts since coming back in February this year (losing to Seppi at IW and Reynolds in Miami when his ranking was still high enough to get direct entry to the Masters events) and he had to save a match point in his R1 match here.

This is Chela's 20th match against a Brit and he leads the series 10-9 (1-4 v Muzza, 5-4 v Tigger, 2-1 v Greg, 1-0 v James Davidson, 1-0 v Luke Milligan) and James is the first Brit outside the top 100 that Chela has faced since he beat Davidson in a Future in the US way back in 1998!

-- Edited by steven on Wednesday 5th of August 2009 12:34:27 AM

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

Good win for Ward against somehow who could have been a tricky opponent, although his record this year wasn't that great.

Chela will be a very interesting opponent and will give us a good idea of where he is at. Chela most definately isn't the player of a couple of years ago which was shown in his thrashing by Murray the French, but is obviously still a handy player. It's not a match that I'm expecting Ward to win, but I wouldn't be overly surprised if he did win the match.

(Chela actually still has one use of his protected ranking of 54 left, which is he going to use for the US Open at the moment, which is presumably how he made the cut of all the other big events this year)

steven · Tennis legend

It's a "Manhã de muito sol em Campos do Jordão" (very sunny morning) and Josh should have been out there in the sun for about an hour now.

It seems very odd that they're not puttingthe big name (i.e. Chela) on centre today - if they had, we might get to see Wardy's match with him live. Oh well, the Brits will just have to win another match or two to get on the livestream!