Week 5 - Challenger ($50K Hard) - Burnie, Australia

The Magician Santoro · Top national player

RE: Week 5 - Challenger ($50K Hard) - Burnie, Australia

The Magician Santoro · Top national player

Broken to 30!

Ward serving at 61%, Henrych 67%

Ward 3-2*

The Magician Santoro · Top national player

deuce...

The Magician Santoro · Top national player

Hernych struggling with serve but still manages to hold

Ward *3-3

The Magician Santoro · Top national player

Easy hold from 15 to Ward

Ward 4-3*

The Magician Santoro · Top national player

Hernych holds to 15

Ward *4-4

The Magician Santoro · Top national player

Match suspended....rain

mikeyp · Junior player

Wardo wins 75 46 63 a great effort

was 20 up in final set broken back to 22 then held from 15 40 in that game no doubt it would have been game over if we lost it

worryingly though he only served 46% first serves, that simply has to improve

stevemcqueen · Futures qualifying

That is a good win. I wonder how the rain break influenced the match?

46% of first serves is really not great. Lets hope he does better in the next round against Ito or Polansky. Currently Ito leads Polansky 5-3 in the 1st.

British_is_Best · County player

Fantastic from Ward to win against a clearly in form Hernych. He is certainly in the best section of the draw (all the seeds have been knocked out, bar Ito (8) and there are less dangerous Aussie floaters in his half, the likes of Tomic, Ebden and Guccione are all in the bottom half). Next up will either be Ito or Polansky. February has already been a better month than January at any rate!

stevemcqueen · Futures qualifying

James will play Ito. Ito's record for the last year is quite strange - he's won two challengers, Brazilia in August and Tokyo in November. Apart from that, he's won very little, despite having played plenty of tournaments.

I took a quick look at James's recent history - I'm sure he's pleased to have broken a 5 match losing streak! I think a win against Ito will take him back inside the top 200.

steven · Tennis legend

Ito has a very strange record against Brits - he got thrashed 2 & 2 by Myles Blake in China last March (must have been ill or something, I assume) and Ross Hutchins took a set off him in Kuala Lumpur qualifying in September. On grass in 2009, he lost in straight sets to Boggo and Goodall but beat both Milton and Slabba in two tight sets.

The Magician Santoro · Top national player

Steven i think you have your points total for James wrong, he is only due to get 15 points if he loses his next match not 17.

steven · Tennis legend

The Magician Santoro wrote:

Steven i think you have your points total for James wrong, he is only due to get 15 points if he loses his next match not 17.

Thanks, corrected.

indiana · Tennis legend

Good stuff smile

That's two really good wins for James and hopefully he has now kickstarted his season.

He's defending 6 points this week so another win against Ito would take him to 256 points which is precisely the points of the current occupant of the WR 200 position.