Week 23 - Challenger - Nottingham - €64,000 +H - grass

Count Zero · Tennis legend

RE: Week 23 - Challenger - Nottingham - €64,000 +H - grass

Nathaliia · Lower Club Player

What a pity for Bloomers; once he went a break down in the 3rd he had all the chances to win that back and then suddenly a collapse. I really thought he could fight here, well, he did win a set. Not sure what he did lack here.

steven · Tennis legend

Real pity about Bloomers - it's the kind of draw you hope for in these pre-Wimbledon grass court tournaments and I thought he was going to do it.

Same story again in the Ward match - a really bright start, taking Ito to a t/b, but the no. 4 seed took it 7-4.

As has been discussed on the Birmingham thread, maybe it's just a case of the higher-ranked players taking most of a set to find their grass court feet then showing their class rather than the Brits fading away.

British_is_Best · County player

Agree with that analysis although worth mentioning that both Roger-Vasselin and Ito played here last week (the former losing in the 1st round to Tursunov, the latter making it to the SFs)

Count Zero · Tennis legend

Ward has Bp's but cant convert and is broken himself :(

Steven how many brits have secured wins over non brits this week?

steven · Tennis legend

British_is_Best wrote:
Agree with that analysis although worth mentioning that both Roger-Vasselin and Ito played here last week (the former losing in the 1st round to Tursunov, the latter making it to the SFs)

... and those straws I was clutching at seem to have been blown away by the wind ... cry

Nathaliia · Lower Club Player

Ward a cheap tent alert. 0-3.

indiana · Tennis legend

Nathaliia wrote:
Ward a cheap tent alert. 0-3.

Err, OK, I understand the score bit cry

Count Zero · Tennis legend

i was thinking similar to you Indy, i reckon its about being 'blown away' as first mentioned by Steven, which means steven is responsible for the confusion being caused.

British_is_Best · County player

To be fair to the Brits here I think the only disappointing scoreline was from Dan Evans against Beck. Smethurst kept Chardy honest and Gabb did well to take Roger-Vasselin to a tiebreak. Bloomers possibly lacking match fitness in his match against Farah (he hasn't played a great deal this year) and Ward is doing well against an in-form player who is pretty close to the top 100

steven · Tennis legend

Count Zero wrote:
Ward has Bp's but cant convert and is broken himself :(

Steven how many brits have secured wins over non brits this week?

Taking Queen's, Birmingham and Nottingham, Q & MD combined, I think the split in GB v non-GB matches is approximately 8-34, made up as follows:

1-2 in matches where the Brit was higher-ranked (Naomi beating Kops-Jones but Laura upset by Pliskova and Jamie B upset by Gregorc)

0-2 in matches where both players were unranked

7-32 in matches where the Brit was lower-ranked - upset wins for Boggo x 2, Hev v Scheepers (not really an upset, but there you go!), Naomi B v Stephens, Abbi Melrose v a very out of form Hubacek, Marcus Willis v Mitchell and Christopher Simpson v Huey.

Nathaliia · Lower Club Player

Yeah, I like Alex Ward's style (and James Ward's even more) and it's just sad to see him being blown by a pusher in person of Tatsuma Ito, at the home country, despite having the chances. After the tight 1st set had he converted a bp it could have developed the way around, instead he got himself broken and things went downhill quickly. The more sad it is that Ito is known on the challenger circuit for being broken often - also on the quick surfaces. By the way, I assume nobody from this forum is attending the second of the Notts challengers to put some light on the matches?

steven · Tennis legend

British_is_Best wrote:
To be fair to the Brits here I think the only disappointing scoreline was from Dan Evans against Beck. Smethurst kept Chardy honest and Gabb did well to take Roger-Vasselin to a tiebreak. Bloomers possibly lacking match fitness in his match against Farah (he hasn't played a great deal this year) and Ward is doing well against an in-form player who is pretty close to the top 100

Yes, I don't think anybody's trying to claim they aren't giving it their best shot, it's just that if they are managing to be competitive, you'd expect one or two more to come through.

A lot of decent play for virtually no ranking points is the frustrating thing - almost better overall if half of them had played a lot worse but the other half had actually squeaked through! LOL

-- Edited by steven on Monday 6th of June 2011 04:58:28 PM

British_is_Best · County player

steven wrote:
British_is_Best wrote:
To be fair to the Brits here I think the only disappointing scoreline was from Dan Evans against Beck. Smethurst kept Chardy honest and Gabb did well to take Roger-Vasselin to a tiebreak. Bloomers possibly lacking match fitness in his match against Farah (he hasn't played a great deal this year) and Ward is doing well against an in-form player who is pretty close to the top 100
Yes, I don't think anybody's trying to claim they aren't giving it their best shot, it's just that if they are managingto be competitive, you;d expect one or two more to come through. A lot of decent play for virtually no ranking points is the frustrating thing - almost better overall if half of them had played a lot worse but the other half has actually squeaked through! LOL

Yes it is certainly a shame and the cold facts of the matter are that of 5 players in the main draw we had 5 first round defeats. Unfortunately for the Brits, these challengers are pretty strong given that they are on grass and there are so few grass events for players to compete in ahead of Wimbledon. We could do with some more challengers at other times of the year really (see Italy for example, they seem to host a challenger every week)!

Count Zero · Tennis legend

thanks for the stats mate, makes it pretty stark, playing at 'home' on a surface we should, in theory at least, have an advantage on and we can't even muster a 20% win rate :(

As many mention, and I've said so many times I'm even boring myself, it's a shame we have so few events and most of them end up being ridiculously strong due to Wimby.