Week 11 Futures - GB F5 ($15,000) - Bath (Hard)

steven · Tennis legend

RE: Week 11 Futures - GB F5 ($15,000) - Bath (Hard)

steven · Tennis legend

"A DF from KO gives JO a break in the second set. *2-1."

steven · Tennis legend

Congrats to Jonny - he beats Keelan Oakley 2 & 3 to qualify for a Futures main draw for the first time!

steven · Tennis legend

And while he may not yet have finished for the day (I'm not sure), many thanks to Shane for all the updates.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

steven wrote:
* L32: Alex Slabinsky WR 643 v (WC) Oliver Hudson WR 1124

Kinder draw for Slabba for a change!

indiana · Tennis legend

I'll be interested to see what Liam does against Richard Gabb, and thereafter if he gets through that one.

steven · Tennis legend

indiana wrote:
steven wrote:
Main draw
A stronger draw than Tipton, with all of the top 5 seeds non-Brits.

Much of a muchness really with the seeds' rankings. Bloomfield and Rice weren't seeded last week, and Michalicka is 3rd seed rather than 6th seed as last week, with Ryderstedt and Nieminen in the same seeding position as last week. although Bloomfield to be fair has had quite a big rankings rise.
Essentially replaced Baker, Goodall, Eaton and Cox with Mertens, Boggo, Bloomfield and Rice in the seeds.
I'd actually say, just in rankings terms, that if you took out Mertens addition as top seed, the seeds overall would be slightly stronger last week.
Quite amusing ( OK maybe not that amusing ) that of the 4 British and 4 foreign seeds from last week, it is the 4 foreign seeds that have gone onto Bath, whilst 3 of the Brits have gone off to Sarajevo and Cox is out injured this week.

Yes, you're right - I hadn't analysed it as closely as you did and I was thinking more of the fact that we had 2 of the top 4 seeds last week and none of the top 5 this time, but of course that's got more to do with the mini-exodus to Sarajevo than anything else.

Julia Carrot · All-time great

Broady v Gabb on now Bet 365

Liam in charge, so far ;)

Not any more

2 - 2* (broken to love :( )

-- Edited by Julia Carrot on Monday 12th of March 2012 11:55:56 AM

Josh · Challenger level

I'll be there between around 11 and 1 today, hopefully the qualifying matches up 1st finish quickly!

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Since Chris & Dom are in Sarajevo this week, Sean & David must feel they're in with a better chance of taking the doubles title here!

R1: (1) David Rice & Sean Thornley WR 364 vs (WC) Sizya Ernest Kivanda & Stefan Sterland-Markovic UNR

R1: Salvatore Pogliese (ITA) & Marcus Willis UNR vs (ALT) Samm Butler & Max England INR

[R1: (3) Nikolaus Moser & Peter Torebko (AUT/GER) WR 1164 vs Arthur de Greef & Yannik Reuter (BEL/BEL) UNR]

R1: (WC) Keelan Oakley & Marshall Tutu UNR vs Marek Michalicka & Michal Milko (CZE/SVK) UNR

R1: Richard Gabb & Toby Martin UNR vs Liam Broady & Neil Pauffley UNR

R1: David Hodgetts & Oliver Hudson UNR vs (ALT) Joe Gill & Jonny O'Mara UNR

R1: (WC) Tommy Bennett & Jack Findel-Hawkins UNR vs Yann Marti & Sami Reinwein (SUI/GER) UNR

R1: Marc Beckles & Dominic Ross-Hurst vs (2) Lewis Burton & Ed Corrie WR 989

steven · Tennis legend

Josh is tweeting scores at http://twitter.com/futuresscores/ - I probably won't have time to paste them all in here like yesterday, so if anyone else feels like doing that ...

SMC1809 · All-time great

While at Bath I spent a lot of time roaming from court to court checking scores and trying to find some kind of mobile reception to feedback scores, so I didn't get to watch any matches for any extended period of time.

However, here are a few of my observations.

Jack Findel-Hawkins is a tall and powerful player who gave James Feaver a really good match. Similar in build to George Morgan. Will probably see his name a bit more during the summer. However, James seemed to have a knee injury, so this may have made Jack more competitive than he would normally be. James looked like a seasoned, weather-hardened player though. I saw him a couple of years ago but he looked a much more rugged individual now. Maybe the years of travelling the far-flung futures circuit has aged him.

Liam struggled early on and was a break-down twice in the first set. Maybe he struggled to adjust as Samm is another lefty, but once he got his nose in front he romped away. Maybe it's just Liam's style, but he didn't look to be trying very hard, even when he was a break down.

Rosenzweig with his ambidexterity is curious to watch. Really can't work out which is his favoured hand as he serves right-handed from the deuce court and left handed form the ad court. By the time I got there his match was nearly over and the time I spent watching him meant I didn't really watch SSM.

Robert Carter is a tall, slim cross between Aled Jones and Justin Bieber. The first set was close but Bant won the crucial points, but Bant is a very slight and much shorter player and didn't have the strength to compete over the 3 sets.

Oakley v O'Mara. Based on photo's I've seen of Keelan, he seemed to be slightly heavier than I had expected - probably a result of his recent injury, but he's got a very big serve. The main differences between the two is that Jonny is very quick around the court and had much more consistent returns. Also, Jonny's double-handed back-hand was much more reliable than Keelan's single hander.

A lot of Keelan's service games went to deuce, whereas I don't think Jonny faced a single break-point in the match. Jonny also mixed his game really well. I think his very first service point was a serve and volley, but he also played from the back really well. A couple of times Keelan came to the net, but was met by either a passing shot or a lob. Jonny also looks like a very fit lad and he's got attitude. The kind of attitude you need to be a winner, similar to Leyton Hewitt, where he'll hit a winner and let his opponent know with a stare there's more come.

If Jonny doesn't get a point this week, it won't be long before he does get one.

A few other things. I watched a Paul Scholes lookalike warming up and from the way he moved, his balance, the way he controlled the racket etc, he looked a decent player, but I wasn't sure who it was. He then came back for another warm up and hit with Boggo. And then it clicked. Obviously missing out on qualifying means Ed Corrie has to have two warm-up hits even on days he's not playing. Not the tallest of players, particularly compared to Lewis Burton, but Ed does look like a very decent player and will be interesting to see how he does this week, and this year, now that he won't have to exhaust himself qualifying as often.

steven · Tennis legend

Thanks SMC - very informative and a couple of good laughs in there too.

Julia Carrot · All-time great

Josh's latest updates

Bamburac lost 2 and 5, dean won 6 and 1. Rice 3-0 down 2nd set, Dunne 1-2 on serve broady set up.

steven · Tennis legend

Liam (6-2) & Dave (6-4) have won their 1st sets but Dave is 0-3 down in the 2nd.