It can't be often that a player ranked outside the top 600 is seeded 2 in a Futures event - not unless it's a very remote one anyway. Hope he can take full advantage!

korriban wrote:

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Frankly, the field in this tournament is spectaularly poor!

If James doesn't go into this week with the attitude that he expects to win the entire thing, and would be extremely gutted if he didn't - then something is seriously wrong. If he hadn't let his ranking slip over the last 6-8 months, he'd actually be the #1 seed.

I don't think he's ever reached a $10k final before (maybe wrong), let alone won a pro tournament - so surely this is his week. With all the weeky fully funded country hopping, he needs to start taking all of these relatively easy points on offer. Now, come on!

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Reached the final of 10K in India in the Autumn of 2011.

Given his recent form I doubt that he expects to win the event but I certainly hope that he sees it as a fantastic opportunity. Anything less that SFs will be hugely disappointing.

L16: (2) James Marsalek WR 628 beat (Q) Shahar Elbaz (ISR) UNR : 6-0, 6-0

Expected result but still a pleasing scoreline.

James certainly seems to be coming into better form after a disappointingly slow start to the year.

Now looks possible with these SF points that there could be 21 Brits in the top 600 on Monday week with hopefully James having more points to add. There will now be 21 on at least 41 points.

Hopefully, we can start adding to the top 500 total before long and some existing top 500ers ( Alex Ward, Pauffley, Slabinsky ) will start winning more points to make their status there more secure )

Then add more top 400ers.

Then...

SF: (2) James Marsalek WR 628 beat (4) Arata Onozawa (JPN) 676 by 2 & 5

James has now beaten 2 Israelis in successive rounds followed by 2 of the 3 Japanese players in the draw in successive rounds. In the Final, he will play either the remaining Japanese player or another Israeli.

 

-- Edited by steven on Friday 10th of May 2013 09:44:33 AM

RJA wrote:

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That win will take James close to his career high ranking. One more win will definitely get him there. More importantly korriban might forgive him for his bizarre scheduling

Anyway, great to see James finally stringing some results toghether.

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If he wins, I'll let him off!

But let's be honest, it's a ridiculous waste of LTA money to do Israel, Greece, Israel, Greece over 4 weeks just for $10ks - especially as he's presumably alone with a travelling coach of some description in Israel.

Whatever one thinks of James' travel arrangements back and forth, I doubt one can argue much that this has been a good place to be this week with such a weak field.

The two top seeds have vanquished their less than illustrious foes and James does seem to be playing pretty decently.

Winning the title would top it off well.