Week 29 - Great Britain F11 ($10,000) - Felixstowe (Grass)

DavidC · Tennis legend

RE: Week 29 - Great Britain F11 ($10,000) - Felixstowe (Grass)

Gary Denton · Intermediate Club Player

Hope Fitzy comes on and gives us his take.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

R1: Ethan Coker & Martin Colenbrander (AUS/NZL) UNR defeated Joshua Jones & Alex Slabinsky WR 2314 by 4 & 3 bleh

R1: Alan Bevan & Marshall Tutu UNR "defeated" Mark Beckles & Dominic Ross- Hurst UNR by a walkover

R1: Robin Goodman & Christopher Simpson UNR defeated Keelan Oakley & Matt Short UNR by 6-3 3-6 [10-4]

R1: Tom Burn & Dan Evans UNR defeated Renier Moolman (RSA) & Thomas Rees UNR by 7-6(3) 6-2

*****

QF: (1) Lewis Burton & Ed Corrie WR 635 vs Ethan Coker & Martin Colenbrander (AUS/NZL) UNR

QF: (4) Andrew Fitzpatrick & Sean Thornley WR 1061 vs Alan Bevan & Marshall Tutu UNR

QF: Robin Goodman & Christopher Simpson UNR vs (3) Marvin Barker & Marcus Daniell (NZL/NZL) WR 921

QF: Tom Burn & Dan Evans UNR vs (2) Michael Look & Jaime Pulgar WR 789

spud · Challenger qualifying

Has Goodall contradicted himself in saying he can "take losing" but then coming out with excuses for why he did?

Conditions haven't been great obviously, but it effects both players at the end of the day and the better players handle it best

RJA · Hall of fame

spud wrote:
Has Goodall contradicted himself in saying he can "take losing" but then coming out with excuses for why he did?

Conditions haven't been great obviously, but it effects both players at the end of the day and the better players handle it best

On the first point. I would imagine that Josh's point is that he can take losing if he is beaten by a better player or plays badly himself but that it is hard to take when poor conditions are a major factor. That being said Josh does have a tendency to moan about things when he feels that something has adverserly affected his game.

On the second point I can only agree so far. Obviously things are the same for both players but awful conditions normally favour the underdog as it "levels the playing field".

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

L16: (WC) Tom Burn WR 1045 vs Andrew Whittington (AUS) WR 876

L16: Oliver Hudson WR 1096 vs (7) Lewis Burton WR 695

L16: Miles Bugby WR 1338 vs (WC) Josh Ward-Hibbert UNR

L16: Marcus Daniell (NZL) WR 758 vs (8) Manuel Sánchez (MEX) WR 736

L16: (6) Sean Thornley WR 723 vs Matt Short WR 769

L16: Alex Slabinsky WR 1140 vs (Q) Alan Bevan WR 1622

L16: (5) Ed Corrie WR 548 vs Joshua Jones WR 928

L16: (LL) Nicholas John Andrews (USA) WR 1522 vs (WC) George Coupland WR 1390

wolf · Tennis legend

First point for Ward-Hibbert.

Dan Evans remains possibly the most inconsistent player I have followed.

Fitzy · Intermediate Club Player

the last 3 tournaments have been a bit of a joke really. i know we are at the lower level of the professional tennis but you expect a level.
My match at ilkley indoors only had an umpire because the lta couldnt find the staff.
manchester...well the surface was a disgrace but still better than this week.

The grass courts at felixstowe shouldnt be allowed for club tennis let alone professional tournaments. I lost because miles played better and got a better rub of the green. he served big and i played terrible. But without making excuses and i want to make that aware, the top 4 seeds lost and that says everything i could ever try to say. No need to explain it.
shocking.

Little quote for you from my match, i asked the umpire in the 3rd game 'where did you see that serve land' after i felt he missed a serve long, in a polite manor, i got no responce.
i walked up to the centre of the court and said 'did you see it hit the back edge of the line?' he said 'oh yea back edge, what do you want a grid reference' 'just get on and play'
Sums up the level we deal with, if i spoke to an umpire like that i get fined, they speak to me like that it ruins the match and nothing happens.

If u want to see shocking tennis and unexpected results come down to felixstowe where there is a professional tournament with money and points on the line being played on a surface similar to your back garden. In some cases worse condition!

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Fitzy, thanks for having the guts to put your side of the story & acknowledging that the better man won in the conditions. So sorry things turned out as they did. After the shambles of the Olympic security arrangements, I'm prepared to believe anything of incompetent British officialdom, but it still seems so wrong that you & your fellow players should have to suffer the ultimate consequences. disbelief

steven · Tennis legend

I think all of the top 4 seeds losing in R1 does indeed tell you all you need to know, not that I'd want to take anything away from those who got big wins and had to put up with the same conditions. It is possible to give them credit for the upsets and sympathise with the higher-ranked players at the same time though.

This run of three Futures really has been a shambles, but the weather has been the main culprit - the first two tournaments were hardly on grass at all and this one got moved to Felixstowe at the last moment because the courts at Frinton were waterlogged. Having said that, while the weather this month has been exceptionally bad, even by the standards of July in the UK, they really ought to allow for the relatively high likelihood of at least some days getting rained off and put the grass court Futures in tennis centres where there are decent alternatives should it rain a lot.

Of course, this is now a great opportunity for one of the remaining GB seeds (or someone like Burn or Slabba or one of the young ones, perhaps) to pick up enough points to give them a big jump in the rankings, so I hope one or more of the Brits (rather than, say, Sánchez) manages to capitalise!

RJA · Hall of fame

Firstly lets try and be fair to the organisers. The amount of rain we have had over the past two or three months has obviously made things really difficult and clubs like Frinton and Felixstowe are always going to have problems dealing with such a situation. However it would surely be better to bite the bullet and move the event to a hard court facility rather than play it on a joke surface.

As for officiating, I watched about a dozen days worth of futures tennis last year and the officiating appeared pretty poor. It was obvious that the players had no faith in the officials getting much right.

Jack Buxton · Club Coach

From the lta website:

"Burn, who recently has had success on the AEGON British Tour circuit, next plays another Briton, Andrew Whittingham"

Oops :)

steven · Tennis legend

Jack Buxton wrote:
From the lta website:

"Burn, who recently has had success on the AEGON British Tour circuit, next plays another Briton, Andrew Whittingham"

Oops :)

I see I wasn't the only one to noticed that double howler. Sneaky of him to change his name slightly when he defected! biggrin

The Magician Santoro · Top national player

Corrie steam rolls the 1st set 6-1.

The Magician Santoro · Top national player

Ed now 3-1* up in the 2nd over J.Jones.