QR2: (q2) Dan Smethurst WR 406 v (17yo) Mariano Esposito (ITA) UNR or (39yo) Enrico Becuzzi (ITA) UNR (CH 1400 in 2003)
Dan making the best of having gone out of Padova today and the fact that clay court Challenger qualifying draws are weaker than hard court Challenger qualifying draws, especially at this time of year.
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GB on a shirt, Davis Cup still gleaming, 79 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming ... 29/11/2015 that dream came true!
The top seed in qualifying won so Dan will be first on the LL list. That does seem an odd scoreline, yet even if he knew a LL place had opened up (it's not clear yet whether one has), it has never made sense to me to forego possible points for qualifying when you might get a tough opponent in the main draw and end up with no points (though perhaps more money, I guess), so I doubt that's often the cause of odd-looking FQR results like this.
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GB on a shirt, Davis Cup still gleaming, 79 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming ... 29/11/2015 that dream came true!
Yep, reckon the most likely scenario is Dan simply got thrashed on the day, which would be rather disappointing given his reasonable form and it being on clay. Makes no sense not to go for the qualifying points, whether there was a likely LL position or not.
-- Edited by indiana on Tuesday 24th of April 2012 08:55:09 AM