Week 16 - Greece F3 ($10,000) - Heraklion (Hard)

RJA · Hall of fame

Week 16 - Greece F3 ($10,000) - Heraklion (Hard)

steven · Tennis legend

Odd not to see Matt Short in the qualifying draw here. He can't have sneaked in as a DA because the top seed in qualifying was ahead of him on the entry list.

steven · Tennis legend

QR1: Harry Meehan WR 1953 beat (wc) Athanasios Verbis (GRE) UNR by 4-6 6-4 7-5
QR1: Adam Skalsky UNR lost to (q15) Vaclav Safraneck (CZE) WR 1184 by 1 & 2
QR1: (q13) Oliver Hudson WR 1134 beat Ivan Polyakov (RUS) WR 1764 by 0 & 1
QR1: (q9) George Morgan WR 892 beat (wc) Oleg Dovgan (UKR) UNR by 2 & 3
QR1: Nikolai Snapes UNR v James Junior Storme (BEL) WR 1968 - yet to be completed blankstare
QR1: James Ireland WR 1256 lost to Tomas Papik (CZE) WR 1764 by 2-6 6-1 6-2 bleh

QR2: Harry Meehan WR 1953 v (q12) Evgeny Karlovskiy (RUS) WR 1120
QR2: (q13) Oliver Hudson WR 1134 v Charalampos Kapogiannis (GRE) WR 1495
QR2: (q9) George Morgan WR 892 v Antonio Mastrelia (ITA) WR 1336 or Nikalaos Kokkotas (GRE) WR 1668

RJA · Hall of fame

QR1: Nikolai Snapes UNR lost to James Junior Storme (BEL) WR 1968 : 6-3, 7-5

QR2: Harry Meehan WR 1953 lost to (q12) Evgeny Karlovskiy (RUS) WR 1120 : 6-3, 7-6(4)
QR2: (q13) Oliver Hudson WR 1134 lost to Charalampos Kapogiannis (GRE) WR 1495 : 6-0, 6-1
QR2: (q9) George Morgan WR 892 beat Antonio Mastrelia (ITA) WR 1336 or Nikalaos Kokkotas (GRE) WR 1668 : 7-6(3), 6-3

FQR: (q9) George Morgan WR 892 v (q5) Pascal Brunner (AUT) WR 756

RJA · Hall of fame

Yet another very disappointing result for George

FQR: (q9) George Morgan WR 892 lost to (q5) Pascal Brunner (AUT) WR 756 : 6-3, 6-3

korriban · Challenger level

George made the SF of one of the GB $10k Futures a couple of months ago and there seemed to be a glimmer that he had turned the corner. But he's back to struggling to make it out of qualies again (I think thats 3 of the last 4 he's not made MD).

I think a few of us were perhaps a little surprised that George and James Marsalek had been awarded full Team Aegon funding and maximum LTA support for the third year in a row, despite very average results in 2012 (vs their perceived potential), when others had missed out. But they clearly showed great promise a few years back. In 2013, James has 5 ranking points in 10 tournaments and George only really has that SF to put in the plus column.

Come on lads!

RJA · Hall of fame

L32: (1) Josh Goodall WR 285 v (WC) Michail-Anastasios Psarros (GRE) UNR
L32: Lewis Burton WR 663 v (6) Jerome Inzerillo (FRA) WR 428
L32: Richard Bloomfield WR 548 v (3) Erik Chvojka (CAN) WR 315
L32: Marcus Willis WR 563 v (8) Carlos Gomez-Herrara (ESP) WR 440

Pretty rotten draw made all the worse by all 4 being in the top half of the draw.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

R1: (1) Lewis Burton & George Morgan WR 812 vs Andrew Carter & Stepan Khotulev (USA/RUS) UNR
R1: Konstantinos Mikos & Anastasios Pavlis (GRE/GRE) UNR vs Richard Bloomfield & Marcus Willis WR 1700
R1: Charalampos Kapogiannis & Athanasios Verbis (GRE/GRE) UNR vs (3) Josh Goodall & Harry Meehan WR 1420

steven · Tennis legend

A pretty rotten singles draw, as RJA says. Would you believe though that this will be Josh's 18th consecutive tournament as the top seed, including all 16 weeks this year (11 Futures and 5 British Tours, though in one of the latter, he withdrew before his R1 match) and 1 BT and the BT Masters last year. The last tournament he played unseeded was the Helsinki Challenger.

It suggests he should be playing at a higher level (as if he and we didn't know that already), yet he hasn't actually won any of his last 10 Futures as no. 1 seed and has gone out in R1 in 4 of them (RU, 3 x SF, QF & R2 in the other 6), so that perhaps suggests the opposite. Given his past though (e.g. qualifying for slams a few years ago and his success in Futures last summer), I would have thought it's more likely that he is simply in a rut with Futures and might well be having some success in Challengers by now if he was able to play them on a more regular basis.

korriban · Challenger level

I agree Steven. At this point, I don't think there's anyting to lose, and maybe the higher quality opposition will bring out the best in him. More generally, I think the greater strength in depth in the GB (and probably worldwide) men's game over the last couple of years may have caught up with Josh.......the rankings from, say, 12-25 on the top 25 table 2 years ago were much lower then than now........which means that there's "good" lower ranked players against you every week.

RJA · Hall of fame

korriban wrote:
I agree Steven. At this point, I don't think there's anyting to lose, and maybe the higher quality opposition will bring out the best in him. More generally, I think the greater strength in depth in the GB (and probably worldwide) men's game over the last couple of years may have caught up with Josh.......the rankings from, say, 12-25 on the top 25 table 2 years ago were much lower then than now........which means that there's "good" lower ranked players against you every week.

I think Josh made a big mistake last summer when he stayed in Britain to play the summer futures, only going to the US to play US Open qualies. By the time he stepped up to play some challengers in the Autumn the fields in the European events were very strong. The US summer challengers traditionally have much weaker fields and that is where I think he should have tried to step up. That being said I am not really sure that it would have made much difference. I often get the feeling that Josh likes being the big fish in the small pond. When he is dominating British futures he has a swagger about him that disappears very quickly when he comes up against better players.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Looks like Bloomers retired when a set down : 6-3 1-0

Hope it's not a serious injury.

seagull · Hall of fame

How long can Bloomers carry on? He seems to have been carrying injuries for years now.

korriban · Challenger level

Seagull. I agree. He seems to go many weeks without playing and retires perhaps 1 tournament in 3 or 4 when he does play. Sounds like his body is telling him something.

korriban · Challenger level

Is it just me, but do our GB men tweet almost obsessively about xbox and playstation almost as much as about tennis? More than tennis in some cases. And this doesn't seem to be just a teenager thing either.

Completely accept that weeks away on the road can be dull, and that whenever boys get together you have to have a bit of banter and competition. Rafa and Andy are into their video games too.

But I do wonder whether the selfish, disciplined, routine-led, highly competitive egotistic life of a pro singles player is compatible with these groups of 4 or 5 GB boys playing xbox to this extent in their free time. Crowd and pack mentality could easily take over. When players from other nations start tweeting about our boys and their video games, and taking photos, I start to worry a bit.......(as has happened in Greece again)

I keep coming back to what Tim Henman and what he said about Jiri Vesely a couple of years ago, in terms of his single minded attitude vs some of our boys. Can you imagine a Vesely or a Rafa or and Andy doing a Harlem Shuffle video with the lads, even at 18 or 19? Ever?

Probably just me.