To be expected with Skupski, no? Major surgery + not playing for a long time. New partner (playing, as well as in marriage!). Hope it will be upwards and onwards from here.
Evo certainly does seem to have lost his way over his last 3 tournaments with 1st round losses to WR 1728 ( China hard ), WR 731 ( Italy clay ) and here Mr 34 yo UNR WC.
This one takes the biscuit though ! He needs to work out fast what's apparently gone very wrong compared to his much more encouraging form earlier in the year.
Edit : have just seen that the last ATP match he played was here last year when he was close to beating Alexander Peya (AUT) WR 230 in R1, lost 1 - 6 7 - 6 (5) 4 - 0 RET if that's any mitigation. Given Menga has no activity record since, I'd say not really
-- Edited by indiana on Monday 16th of May 2011 10:46:59 PM
If Bloomers manages to qualify, the first round will be anything but cushy for him: the top seed, Igor Kunitsyn (RUS), the fourth seed, Matthew Ebden (AUS), the fifth seed, Adam Kellner (HUN), or the Dutchman, Matwé Middelkoop!
Luck must be changing for Richard! It's -
Matwe MIDDELKOOP (NED) WR 265 vs Richard BLOOMFIELD (GBR)
When a Brit lines up at challenger level I always look for them to make at least the quarters, which means getting past a seed (or the player who beats him) in either the 1st or 2nd round. Though Richards 1st round draw is favourable, his potential 2nd round is against 100th ranked Scheuttler, not so good.
The plum draw for my liking was against 5th seed Hungarian Kellner (#222), albeit in the 1st round. Typically he has now gone and lost to a LL.
Fingers crossed Richard (and Dan) can get deep in this draw regardless.
When a Brit lines up at challenger level I always look for them to make at least the quarters, which means getting past a seed (or the player who beats him) in either the 1st or 2nd round. Though Richards 1st round draw is favourable, his potential 2nd round is against 100th ranked Scheuttler, not so good.
The plum draw for my liking was against 5th seed Hungarian Kellner (#222), albeit in the 1st round. Typically he has now gone and lost to a LL.
Fingers crossed Richard (and Dan) can get deep in this draw regardless.
Yes, I do think that's a very good point. For instance here points for winning R1 is just 6 points, rising to 15 for R2 and 29 for QF.
There may be some arguement as to look for what you can get at each stage, because you don't know what's round trhe corner eg, withdrawals. But I do more go with the thoughts that you want to have what looks a decent path for at least 2 rounds. For anyone concentrating on Challengers repeated wins in R1 and exits at R2 do not do a lot for one's ranking - reference : Jamie Baker.
Richard, in particular, now that he is fit, and a ton of points to come off in July, could do with picking up as many as he can get here and in coming weeks.
-- Edited by indiana on Tuesday 17th of May 2011 09:32:29 AM
R16 : Daniel Cox GBR WR 279 vs (4) Matthew Ebden AUS WR 184
Ebden certainly has advanced since Jamie Baker was meeting and generally getting the better of him in Australian futures in Sep / Oct 2009.
5th Challenger L16 for Dan and 3rd of the year. His only QF so far has been the Jersey Challenger of March 2009 ( lost to Boggo in the QF in tournament ultimately won by Evo )
Good win Dan, his best win rankings wise of the year and he did it fairly convincingly! Also his only 2nd win over someone in the top 300 in almost 11 months! Saying that grass season is coming up and Dan is fairly competent on it
Ebden has a great start to the year but has tailed off recently, he tends to get most of his points from the events in Australia and Asia and he did routine Dan 3 and 3 in last year's GB F16 so lets hope Dan can defeat him!