Week 43 Futures - Kuwait F2 ($10,000) - Meshref (Hard)

steven · Tennis legend

Week 43 Futures - Kuwait F2 ($10,000) - Meshref (Hard)

SMC1809 · All-time great

R1: Levente GODRY (HUN) defeated George MORGAN (GBR) 6-2 6-3 bleh
R1: Lewis BURTON (GBR) defeated Richard RUCKELSHAUSEN (AUT) 6-2 4-6 6-2 smile

L16: BURTON (GBR) / MORGAN (GBR) (3) defeated ABDAL (KUW) / ALI (KUW) 6-1 6-1 smile

SMC1809 · All-time great

It's likely to be the second seed Vasiliev in R2 for Lewis, however, he has lost his last 4 matches all to much lower ranked players. If it wasn't for the fact that he's playing an unranked local wild-card, I wouldn't fancy him to win R1.

steven · Tennis legend

I can't find anything which might have suggested Godry could pull off the upset here. I hope George is ok ... or better still, that they got the result the wrong way round!

-- Edited by steven on Monday 24th of October 2011 05:24:28 PM

Salmon · Tennis legend

To be fair to Godry there's no reason to believe George is injured or that something is wrong, and it's rating him way higher than where he is *. If Murray can lose to the Don and the transatlantic Boggo in successive tourneys, Morgan surely can lose to Godry 8 times of out 10 without there being something in it. Sometimes people can't bring their A-game to the courts on certain days, like I remember Federer nearly losing to Suzuki in Tokyo 2006 when Suzuki was in the 300s/400s and Fed was winning almost everything on hard.

* making him deceptively weak, I'd say

No doubt Morgan will soon tweet that he hurt his finger 3 hours before the match and I will be made to look stupid.

-- Edited by Salmon on Monday 24th of October 2011 09:08:38 PM

steven · Tennis legend

You might well be right and George's form has been a bit up and down at senior level, but it does seem an odd loss to me if he was anywhere near 100%. I did wonder if perhaps the 40+ degree heat wasn't agreeing with him, maybe that was a factor.

indiana · Tennis legend

Actually, take out that one week in Sweden last month when George won the title, and I'd say his form has been much more down in seniors and rather disappointing.

Take out that one week, which I'd suggest is the real anomaly at the moment, and he'd currently be ranked just inside the top 1500 with just 2 ranking points.

While I doubt the heat will have been helpful, I see no particular reason to think there's anything much more to this defeat than he simply got beaten.

He or others might say he played below his potential ( probably true ), but it would appear to be closer to his norm so far in seniors.

-- Edited by indiana on Monday 24th of October 2011 10:53:02 PM

HossTheBoss · Strong Club Player

Just heard Ricey got beat 0 in the third.Won first set and was 2-0 up in the second.

seagull · Hall of fame

So why did he skip a $15K in GB to go to this??

indiana · Tennis legend

seagull wrote:
So why did he skip a $15K in GB to go to this??

Well I don't think it was part of his planning to lose R1 cry

Looks a much weaker field, so all things being equal there was more chance of progress, which is fair enough given it's a 10K rather thah a 15K. Though you wouldn't really have thought all things were really equal with regards the venue.

But who knows ? I don't anyway.

steven · Tennis legend

Miles Bugby wasn't the only Brit to give a no. 2 seed a scare today:

L16: Lewis Burton WR 658 lost to (2) Mikhail Vasiliev (RUS) WR 417 (CH 283 in June) by 4-6 6-1 6-4

Spectator · All-time great

seagull wrote:
So why did he skip a $15K in GB to go to this??

The "concerned about climate change" part of me is rather glad that jetting off to foreign locales sometimes proves not terribly productive. (Might all the statisticians on this board perhaps someday do the carbon footprint of players' points? Could be quite interesting/scary. Maybe it would help to green the ATP/ITF!) The "following British tennis players" part of me nonetheless feels for the players. Must be very frustrating.

On a more general note, wouldn't it be lovely if in Mr Burton and Mr Morgan, we wound up with something like the Clement/Llodra combination of a very strong national doubles team and superior singles playing, too?