steven wrote:

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Fascinating stuff from Akhenaten, though I hope the Brits do slightly bit better than his system suggests!

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Sorry to say,  but I think they've done worse..

What, no Brits in Turkey on the clay this week?

Impressions of the day:

Firstly, the advertisement for this tournament is totally non-existant to the point that if you weren't an avid follower of tennis then you would have no idea that an international tennis event is taking place.

The first sign you get of it is when you are already in the building and there is a very small stand which has the drawsheets and order of play put up, and that is about it. No signs on the outside of the tennis centre, and no signs on the road promoting the event, which is very poor from the LTA to be honest. (or whoever is supposed to be promoting the event)

Biggest shock of the day is clearly the defeat for Goodall and his match was a very strange one... he didn't play well at all while Sakharov played a pretty good match, but you always had the impression that eventually Josh would do enough to get the win, but made some bad errors when serving to stay in the match and it cost him in the end.

Evans was a class above Bains and seemed to find the match far too easy, although he was helped by Bains seemingly being more interested in making people laugh with his ridiculous comments than actually playing a tennis match, with him saying things such as he is doing what he was taught and it isn't working and whenever Dan hit a decent shot saying that it was unplayable. If Dan can play well this week then he's got a great chance of winning the event, which is I suppose what we would hope from him.

Smethurst was dreadful for the first set but gradually managed to make his way into the game and his class shone through in the end.

Golding is clearly a talent and has a lot of potential but needs to sort his act together as there is no way he should have lost the match having served for it twice and I think been a minibreak up in the tiebreak. First time he served for it he got one groundstroke in play and the second time it ended with a double fault where he just went for broke on the second serve, which is how the tiebreak ended, before just falling apart in the final set. The thing is... he doesn't seem to have progressed at all in this department since I saw him at Eastbourne last year where he got down on himself far too quickly and went for too many ridiculous serves that will never come off.

Arlidge played well but Lemke didn't seem to be anywhere near the form that has got him into the top 400 - Arlidge should get past Priddle tomorrow though but won't go much further than that.

Willis is another one who threw his match away. Had 7 break points in the first set and didn't take any of them (although Lustig did have a big serve), although on one of them, a set point, Lustig hit a passing shot that was going miles wide but hit the net post and looped over Willis for a winner. He was a break up in the second set but once he lost it he just mentally fell apart and was never going to recover.

Capkovic just looked so easy against Bradshaw and is a real threat to win the title I think, but will have a tough match against Slabba up next, who was involved in a really high quality match with Fitzy, who surprised me with the level of his play and he should be ranked well inside the top 1000 if he can produce that each week. Slabba just edged out the tiebreak in the end when Fitzy put a forehand long, but Fitzy had a chance to win it if he had made a relatively easy forehand pass.

Thornley's scoreline flattered him to be honest as he always seemed to be 0-30 down in service games and didn't look that convincing, but at times produced some great stuff... would think he has a good chance of winning tomorrow but could just as easily go down to a similar kind of scoreline.

I'll be there for some of tomorrow as well (probably til around 2pm or 3pm) so am offering to text scores to people if they want them... predictions for tomorrow would be for wins for...

Bautista-Agut (but if Lustig serves and volleys well he could easily take him out)
Arlidge
Martin
Capkovic (but only just)
Lugassy
Thornley
Smethurst
Evans

Thanks FD, very illuminating ... and to wolf for all the scores again as well.

> Presumably its also cheaper than Wimbledon.

Free, I assume, as a reward for finding it! (can FD or the wolf confirm?)

Doubles (don't think these have been reported yet, but I may be wrong):

R1:  Dan Cox & Josh Milton WR 2085 defeated Neil Pauffley & Alex Ward WR 1524 by 7-5 4-6 [10-2] (you win some, you lose some, Neil! )

R1:  Ben Davis & Stefan Sterland-Markovic UNR lost to (3) Kamil Capkovic & Andrej Martin (SVK/SVK) WR 970 by 3 & 2 

R1:  Burnham Arlidge & Chris Priddle UNR defeated Ahmed El Menshawy & Dan Evans UNR by 7-6(6) 6-0

R1:  Maniel Bains & Marcus Willis WR 1390 defeated Tom Farquharson & Richard Gabb by 3 & 1

R1:  Kyle Brassington & Andrew Fitzpatrick UNR defeated  (4) Tim Bradshaw & James Lemke WR 1149 by 7-5 5-7 [10-1]

R1:  James Feaver & Sean Thornley WR 1312 lost to Ladislave Chramosta & Daniel Lustig (CZE/CZE) WR 1680 by a walkover

*  Chramosta & Lustig then had a second walkover into the SF against the Frog second seeds, Charroin & Walter.  What the hell was going on there?

QFs:

(1) Josh Goodall & Alex Slabinsky WR 489 vs Dan Cox & Josh Milton WR 2085

(3) Kamil Capkovic & Andrej Martin (SVK/SVK) WR 970 vs Burnham Arlidge & Chris Priddle UNR

Maniel Bains & Marcus Willis WR 1390 vs Kyle Brassington & Andrew Fitzpatrick UNR

OK so I stood next to FD for a lot of that so I would expect to have some reasonable degree of agreement, but it's amazing how I agree with virtually all of that.

I'm particulary glad he seems to agree about Fitzy, on the few times I've watched him now I've always thought he was better than his rank, but he seems to win a lot of matches in British Tour and in qualies but when it comes to matches where points are at stake he just can't seem to win. The match against Slabba was a bad match-up though, as they are very similar but Slabba does everything slightly better.

To add to the reports Milton did just about enough against Feaver, who has a heavy topsping game but seems to stand too far back at times (but can move forward as well to decent effect).

FD seemed to have a bit of Lugassy love which seemed a bit misplaced from what I saw, but Brassington was a break up in the final set but Lugassy played a good game to break and then Kyle just collapsed.

Pauffley-Ward was a strange one, I couldn't really draw much conclusion from it despite standing over the match for the final two sets. Ward was different than I imagined, he was fairly tall and well built. Ward was serving second in the final set and his serve wasn't big enough to get him out of a hole at 5-6.

-- Edited by wolf on Tuesday 9th of March 2010 10:06:03 PM

Shhh wrote:

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Stircrazy wrote:

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R1:  James Feaver & Sean Thornley WR 1312 lost to Ladislave Chramosta & Daniel Lustig (CZE/CZE) WR 1680 by a walkover

*  Chramosta & Lustig then had a second walkover into the SF against the Frog second seeds, Charroin & Walter.  What the hell was going on there?

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Its Charrion & Walker that got the w/o into the semi's, not the other way around.

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Oops, sorry, you're quite right, Shhh.  Charroin & Walter in the SFs it is.  Was interrupted by a 'phone call while I was typing that post...!   In the meantime, Wolf has accounted for the second walkover.