Week 19 - Challenger ($125,000) - Kūnmíng, China (hard)

stevemcqueen · Futures qualifying

RE: Week 19 - Challenger ($125,000) - Kūnmíng, China (hard)

steven · Tennis legend

He doesn't have a choice re Roland Garros qualies - the cut-off was last week so he didn't make it - had it been a week before or a week later, he would have been certain to get in.

murray_2k9 · Challenger qualifying

Well done on reversing the loss Wardy! No doubt many would have taken it badly to lose a tight first set against a player serving very well.

I've seen Di Wu play a few times and he seems solid but not spectacular. If Wardy can keep his shots flat and not get dragged into long rallies I think hes more than capable of winning.

stevemcqueen · Futures qualifying

Dino wins his doubles with Bemelmans against a Chinese wildcard pair. $1,600 (per pair) is decent money for a fist round doubles win!

He is not on today's order of play so he can rest up.....

Miriambee · Futures level

on the 9th, 2nd on court after local 11am start

korriban · Challenger level

So from a double break up, he loses 6 games in a row....so far. Not watching, so don't have the context, but he looks like he's having one of his very very weak second serve days.

After his first 2 service games, he was at 70% first serves, with a 100% win ratio on them. 4 service games later, he's at 47% first serves, with 3 of 17 won on second. Which means he's probably been serving at 25-30 first serves since, and rolling in his second serve.

-- Edited by korriban on Thursday 9th of May 2013 05:43:18 AM

Spectator · All-time great

Yes, and I would concur with blob ... my response was really more to note that there were a number of possibilities ... and to move away from what I saw as some rather unhelpful discussion.

-- Edited by Spectator on Thursday 9th of May 2013 07:40:00 AM

Spectator · All-time great

Just looked at scoreboard and saw Mr Ward was holding to love to go 3-1 up in the first set. Don't have time to watch, so over to others ... but it looked like a decent start.

freerider · Futures level

looks like he's lost some steam, first set lost 6-4

LHarvey89 · Social player

Unbelievable turnaround. Ward broke Di Wu once again to lead the first set *4-1 (double break up). 100% of first serve pts won at that stage in the set.

However, Wu then proceeded to up his game and take the next five games without reply and with that came the opening set.

Ward was broken to 30, Wu proceeds to holds with ease, and then break easily again to take it to 4-4*. And the Chinaman then held after being 0-30 down to lead the first set *4-5. He then got the seemingly inevitable break (to 30) in the next game to take the first set 4-6.

And Wu has just opened the second set by holding to 15. Hopefully Ward can get on the board now and push on from there.

korriban · Challenger level

Now at 0-4* he's lost 9 games in a row, his first serve ratio down even more to 44%, and his second serve win ratio at under 20%

stevemcqueen · Futures qualifying

It is hard to say as we don't have a stream but I wonder if he in injured?

korriban · Challenger level

Well that was, err, odd! In the extreme. James won 4 of the first 5 games, and 3 of the last 4. Unfortunately he lost the 10 in the middle without so much as a whimper.

From the outside in, that looks a very normal scoreline. Higher ranked player beats lower ranked player 4 and 3, breaks to both players in each set. The reality couldn't be more different.

In the first 5 games James served at 70% first serve, winning all of those serves, and dropping only 2 points in total. He broke Wu in 2 of his 3 service games on his 2 BP chances. James serving well, and playing well by all accounts, to lead *4-1.

From that moment, James served at 36% first serve for the rest of the entire match, lost 10 games in a row with almost no long games at all, and having served 2 DFs in a row to go 0-5 30-40 down, was more than likely to have been bagelled in the second set. There was a mini revival at the end, which gave the scoreline some credibility. Just before the final mini-revival, he was down to 17% success rate on second serve!

I can't imagine an injury or illness, given the start and the mini revival at the end. Being frank, if this were a match between 2 less well known players, based on the spectacular and sudden change in scoreline and serve/return performance alone, I'd be very suspicious. Especially in Asia. Obviously this isn't the case, so if anyone saw the match, would be interesting to get their views on what realky happened.

Spectator · All-time great

Injury, followed by treatment which, as it took effect, made better play possible? Wouldn't be the first time (witness AM against Nieminen last year) Pure speculation of course.

blob · All-time great

L16: James Ward WR 210 lost to Wu Di (CHN) WR 173 4-6 3-6

Please don't allude to match fixing like that. Even en passant and in the negative, it's entirely unhelpful.