DavidC wrote:

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korriban wrote:

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4-3*

Meanwhile over in Greece, Germany's Robin Kern wins the Futures event there. Remember Robin beat Liam in the Junior Wimbledon Final couple of years back, but has been a slowish starter on the men's tour. He's just gone Win, Final, Win in his Greece futures trip, so it's starting to click - and will make the top 500, probably alongside Oli by year end. One to watch next year for sure. Unfortunate picture on the ATP website - looks like something out of an old war film.

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 Liam beat Kern 13-11 in the final set in the Wimby quarters (it was Luke Saville who beat Liam in the final), but those of us who saw the match were impressed that the German had a big enough game to do damage on the Pro circuit - so no surprise to see him stepping it up.

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 Just corrected myself on previous comment. It's Sunday - brain's in the fridge!

F: (7) Neil Pauffley WR 533 beats (6) Roman Jebavy (CZE) WR 538 by 6-4 2-6 6-4

christian wrote:

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Great stuff from Neil, especially coming from a break down in the 3rd. Hopefully the first of 2 wins today in futures finals.

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I'll second that.

Go Kyle.

RJA wrote:

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Last couple of months have been brilliant for Neil. I watched him a few times over the summer and while I thought he looked like a decent player I wasn't sure that he had the confidence in himself to go much further. That has seemingly changed and he will have a great chance to push his ranking even higher in the early months of next year.

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That's absolutely right, as he only commenced his comeback in March, he has the whole of January and February without a single point to defend.

And he'll be seeded in the top 4, or at least the top 8 in almost any Futures $10k he enters, so easing the passage to the later stages of each tournament.

Get a cracking winter period of training in. Then I hope the LTA gives him their backing in terms of strategic wildcards into some of the bigger events over the summer next year, and that Neil might have had a crack at 2 or 3 Challengers via qualifying before then, rather than just sticking to Futures. Would be a great news story if he continues to outperform some of the "headline" new hopes next year as well, and moves up another 200 ranking positions or so.

before that good luck for the final Futures event next week.

And fingers crossed for Kyle later today - if he wins and wins well (i.e. learning from his previous match with Buchanan and improving yet again), we might start to get very excited for the future