Week 27 - ATP 250 - Newport, USA - grass

Tennis36 · Masters Series Champion

RE: Week 27 - ATP 250 - Newport, USA - grass

spud · Challenger qualifying

Bloomers will go up to around 293! :D:D

What an effort from him, i could see retirement lurking for him, but in this form, who knows, maybe top 200 is very realistic for him again, he has literally nothing to defend for the first half of next year now. Not much to defend the rest of this year tbh either, around 30-40 points :)

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

It's just amazing to think that considering the last couple of years that Bloomers has had, he is now in an ATP semi-final.

Good performance in the end to come through today and he held his nerve really well at 4-4 to save a load of break points.

Can't see him beating Fish tomorrow as Fish is not only in some reasonably decent form, he has the experience of playing in these situations, and the perfect game for grass - none of which any of Bloomers previous opponents have had.

Even so, a great week for him and great chance for him to get himself back towards the top 200 as these points that he has will ensure that for the next 12 months he won't drop much lower than he already is.

Drew · Jul 9, 2010

Tennis36 wrote:

Drew wrote:

Rather than give RB a nice article on him reaching the SF the BBC lump his win in on their new piece on the betting probe....bloody typical

that is being way too harsh, they had it on their breaking news ticker as soon as it finished, and it takes a while to type up a finished article, there will be an article in the next few hours or tommorow morning

ok i was a bit harsh....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/8806862.stm

Sheddie · administrator

Great stuff from Richard, I watched the full match and it was very impressive the way he remained completely unfazed after losing such a close first set.

It was such an old-school match, felt like a real blast from the past with both players serve-volleying on 1st and 2nd serves....the courts and surroundings at Newport have very obviously remained unchanged in the past 30 yrs.

I think Fish will be a step too far though. Richard will need to get more than 55% 1st serves in to have a chance as Fish will return much, much better than Harrison did today.

It will be interesting to see how Richard does over the rest of the summer, he is now in with a slight shot at making US Open qualies.

The question will be whether his game will be as effective on hard courts in the US challengers, as the Newport courts are tailor-made for his game. I remember he's had some degree of success on the hard courts in the past, he did well at ATP Washington one year and had a good run at the Granby challenger on another occasion but just hasn't had the consistency.

goldfish · Futures qualifying

I feel a little caution is required here. Richard has only won 1 match at ATP level before this week and will still have to qualify for tournaments at this level. Points awarded for futures are quite low unless you get to the latter stages, so defending 30-40 points plus acquiring more to improve his ranking this year is still quite a challenge. However, his haul of points this week has made a huge difference to his ranking and hopefully to his confidence. The added bonus of having a bit more money in the bank must relieve some of the stress of surviving on the tour.

I do hope he can continue this success. It's so good to see a player who has been struggling with health problems, recover and get back to decent form. Good mental strength shown this week too.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

will he be able to get a SE somewhere next week?

indiana · Tennis legend

Poor James and Jamie, their Davis Cup efforts rapidly turned into the day's second news smile

Not a bad day for the guys :

Richard reaches an ATP semi

Jamie & James put us 2 - 0 up in the Davis Cup with James beating Ilhan

Goodall and Rice make the final of future in Ilkley ( though of course a GB final was already guaranteed ) with a good performance from George Morgan.

And looking to the future, Liam Broady & Luke Bambridge reach the semis of a Grade 3 Junior tournament in the Czech Republic.

Not a bad day at all !

-- Edited by indiana on Friday 9th of July 2010 10:52:02 PM

mjd · Challenger qualifying

Count Zero wrote:

will he be able to get a SE somewhere next week?

Hopefully he will get one of the Aptos SEs

Drew · Jul 9, 2010

Cant he get an SE into Stuttgart or Bastad...their both ATP 250 like Newport ??

He would have been ranked high enough to enter qualies??

indiana · Tennis legend

Drew wrote:

Cant he get an SE into Stuttgart or Bastad...their both ATP 250 like Newport ??

He would have been ranked high enough to enter qualies??

Possibly theoretically.

But Stuttgart and Bastad are both clay court ATPs, can't see any likelihood of Richard trying to get into these given they are clay court tournaments and he's currently in the USA.

Much more likely and sensible to look to get into the Aptos Challenger, which was probably his original plan anyway, albeit expecting then to go through qualifiers

mjd · Challenger qualifying

Yes he was going to Aptos qualies, so if system works he should be contacted by the organisers to confirm if he wishes to take up SE.

Picture of Rich and Ryan here

Drew · Jul 10, 2010

i thought SEs were offered to the same level of event....or can you go down the way..ie atp250 to challenger?

Vandenburg · Futures level

Can we be honest! this is a great little run,but is he back for good?
hes made the most of a good serve he has on a grass court,so he should and hes reached the semis of a atp event know to have a week field,plus put in the betting scandal, i think this run is overated.

The Knight · Challenger qualifying

well done to him, credit to the way he's done this week. He has a once-in-a-career oppurtunity here to win an ATP title and i seriously hope he does it...but i dont think anyone here seriously thinks this is the start of a 'Ritchie Revolution'. Newport has a habit of throwing up these sort of results (Ram, Amritraj, Martin Lee)