Week 24 - Wimbledon Men's Qualifying

Count Zero · Tennis legend

RE: Week 24 - Wimbledon Men's Qualifying

Scratchy · Club Coach

Has anything ever been proven regarding Bloomers and suspicious betting? If not then it seems a bit harsh. Innocent until proven guilty and all that...........

RJA · Hall of fame

Count Zero wrote:
RJA wrote:

Now I am not going to accuse Richard of anything but in fairness to the bookies they do know the difference between suspicious betting paterns and an underdog winning.
then surely the ATP/ITF should be investigating the losers of the matches.

Indeed they should. Although I have always thought that these "upsets" weren't actually that surprising given that Richard is a good grass court player it is right for the betting companies to report suspicious activity and for the authorities to investigate.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

From a MTF poster:

'reporting from my laptop at Roehampton'

The weather here is piss-poor, big grey clouds everywhere, sporadic rain, etc. If matches appear to be stuck, it's because there are showers here and there. Some of the outer courts took an absolute battering last night as well, apparently. Doubt we'll get through today looking at the weather. Might go down to Eastbourne tomorrow instead

eblunt · Club Coach

Count Zero wrote:
RJA wrote:

Now I am not going to accuse Richard of anything but in fairness to the bookies they do know the difference between suspicious betting paterns and an underdog winning.
then surely the ATP/ITF should be investigating the losers of the matches.

Exactly. How the winner of any 'unusual' match can be under suspicion is beyond me (*) - what could he have done - tried too hard ?

(*) unless of course the suspicious betting patterns involved wiining in a particular way

steven · Tennis legend

mjd wrote:
I am informed by Leon Smith via Roger Draper that it was the All England Club Committees decision not to allocate a qualifying wild card for Richard Bloomfield and the LTA did recommend Richard to the All England Club.

As Richard is higher Ranked than Boggo who is also recovering from injury played similar amount of games and similar age I wonder if the the All England had in mind that ridiculous betting allegation from Wimbledon 2006 first round win and yet again last year when he beat Rochus in USA who by the way was only ranked 160, Richard then went on to beat Giraldo and Ryan Harrison - were they too taking bribes? ( Telegraph )
I did not notice an investigation being launched for James Ward's brilliant wins last week! I wonder why Richard gets the bookies, especially Bet365 so upset when he wins against the odds is he supposed to always lose?

That is a shock, but fair play to the LTA. Surely it can't have anything to do with the betting allegations, since the matches we're talking about are matches Richard won - only the loser can realistically come under suspicion, surely?

It may be a numbers problem - assuming all the players who did get QWCs were recommended by the LTA too, that would mean 7 players were recommended for QWCs. The wild card playoff factsheet promised QWCs to the finalists, so that would make 9 and by convention, the AELTC was always going to give a WC to Fucsovics as the reigning boys' champion (and his ATP ranking is too low for them to realistically consider giving him a main draw WC), so one of the 9 Brits had to miss out.

Of course, the LTA say they only make 8 WC recommendations in total, and this would mean they made 10 (the 3 main draw WCs and the initial 7 qualifying WCs), so I wonder if they recommended all the players in the top 400 including Bloomers and only one of the juniors, e.g. Golding, but the AELTC decided to give QWCs to the other two juniors as well and drop the oldest player off the list.

Bizarre, whatever way you look at it ... but no big surprise that Richard seems tp have drawn the short straw once again.

steven · Tennis legend

I asked Guy McCrea,who is there, what was going on re. Court 16:

"They are getting underway v shortly on court 16 - needed extra time to dry out as was too damp in opinion of refs office"

Clever of them to put so many of the Brits on one of the most vulnerable courts! bleh (that may be unfair - which courts are most vulnerable may depend on the direction of the rain, I guess)

RJA · Hall of fame

Ward has just started against Harrison 1-1*

RJA · Hall of fame

Boggo now on court

Count Zero · Tennis legend

Boggo's on the SB. if he wins he'll play Gicguel who won rather easy over Flashman, ERV also win his opener vs Veic with ease.

indiana · Tennis legend

Thanks to mjd for the information re Richard. Apologies to the LTA if I said anything harsh against them while making it clear my feelings that Richard should have been given a WC.

Of course speculation as to why the AELTC did not go with that recommendation is purely speculation, but I do very much hope it hasn't been a case of mud ( and no proof at all ) sticking.

I did think it slightly strange that there were a total of 9 ( MD + Q ) WCs initially given to Brits when the LTA said they would only recommend 8. As Steven suggests, 10 seems even more unlikely, especially as the LTA would / should have not been unaware of the arithmetical issue involving the play-offs and the boy's champion.

I would guess that he may be on the right track that there is some divergence from the LTA's recommendations not just involving Richard but also the juniors. That indeed Richard may have been recommended and maybe just one of the juniors, Richard has been replaced for whatever reasons and the AELTC have replaced him in such a way that all 3 top 17 / 18 yo juniors now get QWCs, as a sort of box set.

Again, speculation, of course. Boo the AELTC !

-- Edited by indiana on Monday 13th of June 2011 12:09:49 PM

Count Zero · Tennis legend

think bogg may have missed an early bp or 2. hope it doesnt come back to effect him.

RJA · Hall of fame

Boggo *2-2

Had 15-40 in game 4

RJA · Hall of fame

Ward 5-5*

Count Zero · Tennis legend

be really nice if boggo can get a break through before it gets to the tight end of the set.