Morgan Phillips turns up here in qualifying and perhaps a little surprisingly has ended up as the 2nd seed.
Has a bye in round one, will face either Tim van Terheijden or Mischa Nowicki in round two, and is seeded to face Ante Pavic, ranked 577 in the final round.
Should qualify here which will be a great boost for him and has turned out to be a good bit of scheduling.
(Although perhaps he should have stayed in Italy for San Benedetto.... only 17 players in qualies, of which, only five are ranked and one of those only has a doubles ranking which is outside the top 1000... should be 3 very easy ranking points for the 4 players with a singles ranking)
40-0 up, loses the next 4 points (I think), saves the bp, a couple of game points but pegged back to deuce each time, another bp for Smit, saved again, another couple of deuces and eventually serves his 2nd ace to hold for 6-5*.
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GB on a shirt, Davis Cup still gleaming, 79 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming ... 29/11/2015 that dream came true!
I remember the days when he used to regularly beat higher-ranked players, now he seems to be regularly losing to lower-ranked ones. Hope he can turn it around soon because he's got points from two Futures Finals to defend next month.
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GB on a shirt, Davis Cup still gleaming, 79 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming ... 29/11/2015 that dream came true!
Smit at one stage was a decent player, but having not played a tournament for two years, you would have thought that Morgan should have had enough to get past him.
He does get in as a lucky loser though given that he has just appeared on the scoreboard.
He faces 7th seed Yuri Schukin, ranked 145, and someone who has been in good form recently, qualifying and winning a round at the French Open and also reaching the QF's of a challenger last time out.
Hard to see Morgan getting a set, but you never know.