An extract from Smetty's win over Giron in the last 32

The next match upon which I focused the brunt of my attention featured one of my 2010 PTW batch, Dan Smethurst, against the plucky 17 year-old qualifier, Marcus Giron. The 20-year-old Brit had a decidedly non-watchworthy 2010 season, going 29/24 and falling 66 rungs down the ranking ladder. I had seen him play at the U.S. Open juniors and was duly impressed, so I was anxious to see how hed progressed in the 16 months or so since Id last seen him. First thing I noticed: hes a helluva lot bigger now. Bulkier, and somewhat of an imposing guy definitely not how Id remembered him.

He certainly dwarfed Giron in both game and stature, but the smallish American had some fairly big results to qualify, beating (a surely exhausted USA F1 Plantation finalist) Olivier Sajous and winning four matches to get to his main draw encounter here. However, it was clear that the incoming UCLA-freshman was overmatched from the get go, with one of Englands Top 500 Dans (Smethurst variety) pummeling forehands away on three consecutive points to get an early break *2-1 in the first set. Giron got to 30-all in the next game, but an unreturned serve followed by some terrific Smethy scrambling and a punctuating forehand crosscourt consolidated the break for the Lancashire lad.

The next game wasnt any better for Giron. He watched another Smethurst FH fly by on the first point, backhanded long on the second, forehanded into net on the third, and was summarily broken a second time on a confident close-out at net from his opponent. At this point, I stopped having to do my analyst job as Marcos started to do it for me, making loud and accurate pronouncements about his play to anyone within earshot: Im hitting it so short! So many unforced errors! Correct. And correct. First set to Smetty 6-1.

Smethurst double faulted to give Giron an early break in the second set, but I really didnt see the young American finding his way through the match (in fact, he had done a little arm-waving sarcastic celebration when he won the previous game), so I headed off to check out other action. When I returned, I found the Marcos Giron World of Loud and Candid Self-Assessment show still going strong: I cant hit three balls in a row! Minor correction: he could, but not into the court. Im sure that was what he meant anyway.

Smethurst served for the match at 5-3 but got burned on a poorly conceived and executed 30-all drop shot and Giron fought back to 5-all, only to return the poorly-conceived-and-executed drop-shotting favor serving at 5-6 0-15. Smethurst went on to break for the match 6-1 7-5. Overall, I was still very impressed with his play I thought his shot selection was mostly sound and his execution excellent. The only area I saw him running into any consistent trouble was coming over the ball off the backhand wing, but other than that I cant really see how hes not a Top 250 player already. Hes certainly got the ability. And though Giron went down, he was a game and very entertaining character to watch. I respected the heck out of his effort to both get in Smethursts way and get out of his own on the attempted path to the second round. I think the USTA Pro Circuit experience hes gaining will be invaluable to his development, and Ill be looking out for him in the future(s).