Thankfully Josh didn't manage to choke that set away. Came in at 5-0 up and seeing that he also served for the set, would have been a disaster had he lost it. Should go onto win now and with the draw he has, he's got a shot of qualifying here as he is in the weakest section of the draw.
(EDIT... not looking so good in this set though)
Not too much hope for a qualifier from the other sections as the draw hasn't been too kind. Ward's got a bad section with Levy to start with, and if he somehow manages to get through that, probably Mahut in the last round, so can't see him qualifying.
Evans doesn't have the worst section and should win his opener, and given his match with Anderson beforehand, has the ability to beat him. And Ouanna has done nothing since the French Open, so if he does play to his best, Evans could qualify.
Boggo's got a difficult section but if he gets through the opening two matches, he should win the third. He beat Peya last time and should be fit now, so there's hope to beat him again, while he pushed Dancevic all the way last time so could beat him this time. Not sure he'll qualify though.
Hope there will be a qualifier, but if I had to make a prediction, I'd go for no qualifiers.
Pretty pathetic from Josh at the tail end of that set, despite the fact he won it. Sijsling nearly made the most of several early Xmas presents.
As always when not watching you can never really tell just by following livescores...quite a drop off in form over the match which can now be understood by the injury perahps.
a shame for josh. i wonder what the problem was, probably even worse as he really did have the best section, esp with Canas pulling (although sisling has been playing well recently). lets hope its not too serious and doesn't keep him out too long.
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Count Zero - Creator of the Statistical Tennis Extrapolation & Verification ENtity or, as we like to call him, that steven.