Stircrazy wrote:

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A couple more Brit results from the LTA site via Twitter:

Results from AEGON GB Pro-Series Tipton: Josh Goodall (GBR) bt Dan Smethurst (GBR) 26 76(1) 75, Dan Evans (GBR) bt Alex Ward (GBR) 61 64

So, Goody will play Marcus Willis in the QF & Evo either Vibert or James Marsalek.

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Reports from Tuesday

The matches yesterday seemed to go on forever. The first set in Fitzys match went for at least and hour and twenty minutes and it took nearly eight hours to complete three matches on Court 4.

Obviously I watched some matches more attentively than other so apologies for the disparity of depth in the reports.

Ward just simply outplayed Morgan in every department. Better serving, more power off the ground, more depth off the ground etc. Morgan actually broke serve in the first game but from then on it was one-way traffic. Ive watched Morgan play four times now and hes lost all four times so Im not exactly his lucky charm.

Goodall was better than Eaton on serve and return. Eaton suffered three terrible calls when he was serving at 2-5 in the first set including a Goodall smash which was at least three inches wide.

Didnt watch any of the first set in the Bloomfield against Hewitt match but Bloomers should have won the second set easier than he did but missed a couple of easy shots in crucial moments. Hewitt is going to have to improve his serve; it looked way too weak for this level.

Hignett played a nice game against Roy without ever looking like he was going to win. It was on serve until 4-4 in the first set and Hignett broke serve at 5-4 in the second. The backhand seems to be Hignetts better shot. Roy played at about his ranking level, nothing special.

Evans was most impressive. He reached the semis here two years ago (two weeks before winning the Jersey challenger) and there was something about the way he went about his business, a newfound focus and maturity. He ran away with match after he broke serve at 4-4. Again the thing I find most impressive is his ability to change the pace and the direction of a rally at will. Spong couldnt put a hanging forehand volley inside the court to save his life.

I didnt watch any of Willis win over Haenle due to long matches elsewhere

Bugby had a good win over Nieminen but the Finn showed nothing of how he got into the top 300. Once Bugby started to get the ball into court at a set and double break down there seemed to be only one winner. I was expecting Bugby to have a bigger serve than he did, but he muttered at one point since when do you lose serve so it seems he was just have an off day in that department. Bugby was 0-40 down at 5-5 in the third set but won nine of the next ten (or maybe 10 of the next 12) points and his lack of celebration at the end showed how easily Nieminen gave it away. The match lasted over two and a half hours. Bugby mutterings made it clear he had no ounce of respect for the umpire, and there were some bad calls at times but at other times he was being unreasonable.

Smethurst vs. Priddle was probably the match of the day with it going to three tiebreaks. The match was punctuated with long baseline rallies, despite there only being four breaks of serve in the entire match, with both players occasionally coming to the net with mixed success. Priddle was 5-2* up in the final set after Smethurst had given away the break of serve at 3-2 with a massive double fault. Priddle was broken to love at *5-3 and had a mp at 5-4* Smethurst saving it with a lunge volley winner. Smethurst went 3-0* up in the tiebreak but Priddle had another mp at *6-5 where I think he netted a backhand. He had his last mp at 7-6* when he hit a backhand return long. The crucial point was at 8-8 when Smethurst hit a deep return which rushed and panicked Priddle and he tried to hit a forehand slice which was never going to trouble the court. The match went past the three-hour mark.

I didnt really see much of Miltons loss against Torebko and Ive never actually sat down and watched a match of his properly so perhaps unfair to comment on his level.

Jones vs. Sabate-Bretos was the funniest match of the day. Jones is very fluent in Spanish and clearly has trained his Spain for an elongated period going by that and his style of play, a heavy topspinning leftie who doesnt look like hes shanked a ball in his life. Sabate-Bretos hasnt played a match on hard for over a year so very strange that he was playing here. In the first set Jones was 5-0 up fell apart a bit when he was serving for the set at 30-0 and the umpire didnt call a ball that was clearly out at the start of a very long rally, but eventually closed out the set. Things started to get very frayed in the first set, they werent particularly friendly throughout but I think it all started to kick off when Jones had a go at the umpire for a very poor call off a serve that looked both long and wide and the next the point S-B hit a shot that hit the line, Jones threw his arms up in the air thinking it was out and then the umpire called it. S-B made the very legitimate point the only reason the umpire called it was because he didnt want to call against Jones again. After that the two players exchanged angry words mainly in Spanish at after he won Jones launched into a tirade directed straight at his opponent. They didnt shake hands with each other or the umpire. It didnt stop there with Jones having an off court argument with a woman who I presume was S-Bs girlfriend. In all this there were again some very long rallies but I think Jones was the deserving winner.

Fitzpatrick started well hitting a few winners but after this I always saw Rastogi as the most likely winner. As the set wore on neither could find away past each others defences and there were several punishing long rallies. Fitzy survived a long game at 4-5 before he won the tiebreak and was a break down at the start of the third set before hitting back to win. Ive seen Fitzy play better but maybe that was because it was against a lesser standard of opposition. The call that Fitzy described before wasnt even the worst one there were many poor calls in that first set. The thing Fitzy needs to work on his finding a reliable first serve, at times it can pretty wild and he needs to know its there in the pressure moments.

Slabinsky went a break down straight away but I started watching in the closing stages of the first set against the 2009 champion Mertens. Those last few games of the set were I would say were the highest quality of the day and that quality didnt relent much in the second set. Slabba I would have thought would have won against most of the other players in the draw playing like that.

Didnt concentrate too much of Marsalek, there wasnt anything particulary eccentric about his game but thats a great win for him today.

You can basically throw a blanket over this entire field, but for me at the moment Mertens is the most likely winner.

Leon Smith was there and tried to watch as many matches as possible not just the Team AEGON players.