Queens qualies - Who is going?

steven · Tennis legend

RE: Queens qualies - Who is going?

spud · Challenger qualifying

I thought about that, but Dustin has a very good serve and solid volleys which Bog might struggle with compared to Malisse, who has a serve you can return most of the time.

steven · Tennis legend

Ok, fair enough then ... Dustin Brown's been a bit under the radar for me for some reason.

indiana · Tennis legend

pfft to past round 1 smile

The people want Boggo vs Dimitrov !

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

Great to see Boggo qualify here and after the way he looked to be playing yesterday, I did expect him to beat Bozo today, but as usual he made a little bit hard work of it but got the job done in the end.

Depending on which draw he gets he could win a couple of rounds here. None of the first round draws are nightmareish (although you would want to avoid Malisse if possible given his pedigree on the surface), and I agree with Steven that in the long run, Brown would be the best draw. He may have a theoretically good game for grass, but he's only ever played once on it and lost to Andrew Anderson then, so how good he really is, is another question... and then you'd think he could get past Baker/Istomin afterwards.

Shame that Evans and Cox lost and couldn't make it three qualifiers but there's still hope for a lucky loser spot, although I think they may be just too far out to get in. Shows decent hope for them in terms of Wimbledon qualies, if that is where they end up, with the results they have had this week, although to get a main draw WC, they may have had to win today.

I'll throw up some reports of the matches yesterday when I get a few minutes to write them...

Count Zero · Tennis legend

just got back, great perfomance by alex today. good weekend all in all. i'll try and write a bit more later, need to have a shower etc

Count Zero · Tennis legend

Bit of extra info,i was pretty downbeat going into this match, boggo had woken up with a really stiff neck and shoulder, needed to have some fairly intense physio work in the morning so we got down their extra early, luckily things eased up as he used the muscles in the match. Added to that his right ear was blocked! Obviously these small things can get you down when you have to focus on a tough match so it was really great to see him come out and keep fightiong even though he went a break down and Ilija (who i met breifly and seems to be a pretty nice guy) was serving 'bombs' down there. some of his 2nd serves were huge!

As the match wore on, Alex was generally coming out on top in the rallies, his ground strokes were really consistent today and he made hardly any unforced errors.

He had a couple of BP's middle of the 2nd set but both times Ilija sent down huge serves, but good work to take the TB.

Ilija was really starting to get upset about the grass, and he just kept losing his footing, at one point he had the ump down out of the chair to check etc. obvisuly alex got the break, then had the 3bp's for a double break, and in that game he had slipped maybe twice, so he was losing it big time and just smashed 2 serves into the net. Spent quite a while moaning here with the ump and whilst i dont think the delay effected alex he did break back next game, he was just swinging big and pulled it off, it wasnt a great game by alex but it wasnt dire, anyway he knows his fans love a boggocoaster, you cant expect 3 matches in a row without one! Great to see he didnt let the break effect him and he kept his cool to see it out in the end for a pretty big win.

Obviously he's got a good draw tomorrow vs Grigor, but i wouldnt say its in the bag by any means. Alex must be feeling pretty tired, in the last week he played 5 singles and a doubles match (and he also played a club match last sunday). obvisuly he's pretty pumped to have made it through, esp after being turned down on a WC; they make the wimby decision tomorrow (probably b4 the grigor match i believe) certainly his efforts here at queens cant have hindered him in that regard.....

As for me it was a pretty intertesting day, got to see a lot of what goes on in a players day - theres a lot of hanging around etc but also lots going on as well, organising practice courts, courtesy cars, press conferences, massages, physio etc etc. having a coach or someone who can just help out with all of that must be so important so the players can just focus on the match.

obviously a lot of big names where hanging around too, inc Andy (who was playing quite a bit of table tennis but seemed like he kept losing) Roddick, Nole, i'm guessing most were there save Rafa really.

What started out as a pretty bleak day turned out to be a rather good one over all