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

korriban · Challenger level

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

Jeff Stelling · Club Coach

korriban wrote:
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.

"If this were a match between two less well known players?" What on earth on you on about man? I could name you ten recent/current players who are far better known than these two and who it is 99% certain fix(ed) matches.

Also agree with the poster further up. I am sure with no evidence to the contrary that this match was clean. Best to avoid even mentioning it in the first place IMO.

korriban · Challenger level

Of course I think this match was clean (although odd). Many others aren't. Clearly.

Shouldn't have mentioned it. Rather ill-judged. Sorry!

Jaggy1876 · Grand Slam Champion

I can see where Korriban is coming from to a certain extent. It wouldn't be the first time, won't be the last particularly in that part of the world. Personally however I think it was more a case of James playing to his true ranking ability of circa 200 rather than anything else.

RJA · Hall of fame

Jaggy1876 wrote:
I can see where Korriban is coming from to a certain extent. It wouldn't be the first time, won't be the last particularly in that part of the world. Personally however I think it was more a case of James playing to his true ranking ability of circa 200 rather than anything else.

James is a very hot and cold player. When he is on fire and everything goes in he can string games together very qucikly, when he is playing badly and misses everything he can lose games just as quickly.

korriban · Challenger level

RJA. Precisely. We saw it against Zverev a few weeks ago. No explanation for it, but we saw him unravel at the victory line with a look of despair on his face. He will be kicking himself for today's serving display.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Stircrazy wrote:
The Japanese ALTs took out the fourth seeds, de Voest & Guccione (WR 238) in straight sets (two tie-breaks) in the first round, so they're likely to prove a bit of a handful!

More than a bit of handful:

QF: (ALT) Go Soeda & Yasutaka Uchiyama (JPN/JPN) WR 586 defeated Ruben Bemelmans (BEL) & James Ward WR 1331 by 0 & 1

Abject! disbelief

The Magician Santoro · Top national player

Ward has pulled out of Busan which suggests he suffered an injury in his last match

stevemcqueen · Futures qualifying

With both of them out of the singles, it is easy to see that their hearts weren't in the doubles, especially if there is an injury in the mix.

From an enthusiat's point of view, Dino's loss to Wu in the 2nd round was tremendously dsiappionting. After DC heroics and a storming effort on his least favoured surface I think many tennis cognoscenti were anticipating a surge up the rankings. There isn't much you can do about injuries, it is just unfortunate when they happen when a player is in such a rich vein of form. I hope he recovers quicky and can make hay in the grass court season.