RJA wrote:

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murray_2k9 wrote:

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Brilliant results. Hoping whoever makes it to the QF might be televised via the BBC site? I imagine Edmund certainly will contunye to generate some interest from the BBC being the more well known of the two.

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 It will depend what court it is played on. Normally by the Wed/Thur you get a couple of junior matches on court 18 or another televised court. In 2011 several of Liam's matches were covered.

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 Aye I remember seeing Liam's QF with Kubler, SF with Kern and half of the final with Saville (unfortunately the bad half) that year. All were actually on the red button IIRC.

RJA wrote:

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Coup Droit wrote:

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I think the 'transition' is difficult (Henman, of course, thinks it's all a load of rubbish and that they shouldn't be playing so much juniors anyway, as it doesn't count and just gives a false impression).

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A lot of what Henman says about our Junior's does annoy me but a couple of years back he did say that he was very impressed with Jiri Vesely, whose win today in Germany will probably see him into the top 100 as of next Monday. So maybe Tim does know a thing or two.

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 I think a bit of both is the key. Broady went in almost cold and has struggled. I really like Kyle's approach this year, getting used to the men's side of things but also playing a couple of the junior Slams. As he says, it's a vital experience learning to play with the pressure of expectation and will be useful tool later in his career (or even now, if he plays more Futures) when he is expected to do well.

He leaves himself in a really good position for when his junior career is finished, already well inside the top 500 and hopefully will return to the top 400 (I think he may slip just outside again after the Wimbledon qualies points come off), whereas many of the other guys float between about 600 and 1000. He's in a great position to really kick on, and whilst many of his current rivals at junior level (top seeds like Milojevic and Djere) will be trying to battle into Futures main draws and having to work their way up, Kyle will be one of the top seeds or possibly even playing Challengers by that time. Hell - he's already got a win on the main tour!

A quick (very late) report on Monday.

After watching Harriet and Maia, the first of the boys I watched was Billy Harris. He was playing a Chilean qualifier and there was a delay to the start as the organisers fetched a shirt for the Chilean, the coloured stripes across the chest of his own shirt having been deemed to be a bit too wide. He didn't seem to find the new shirt too comfortable but seemed to quickly get used to it. Apparently, there was a British player who used to do this every year just to get some free kit LOL

Although Billy's serve seemed decent enough, the first 8 (I think) games were breaks. Billy got the first break and served for the set but got broken back and eventually lost the set in the tiebreak. His forehand was a bit suspect (as was pointed out by someone better qualified to judge than I am!) but I did think he looked like the better player and was pleased to find out later that he had won the match in three.

The only match I watched throughout was Jonny O'Mara against France's Mr January - but that was because it was so long and exciting!

I knew Liz Curran was intending to watch that one too and quickly spotted her so went to say hi. Soon afterwards, we were surrounded by coaches - Greg Rusedski sitting just to our right, Martin Weston just behind us, Beechy sitting on the steps just to our left, Mark Hilton in front and a couple of others (already too long ago to remember all of them!) Liz knows them all of course - a combination of having no shame (I'm joking ) and having been at all the slams last year, where I'm sure the players and coaches are particularly happy to have Brits to talk to, much as with Bob when he goes to watch the Brits in Spain.

Greg was taking copious notes in his big black book and giving a low volume running commentary It was interesting to see how the various coaches tried to encourage him. Greg's staple is "good serve" (quelle surprise ) and the others have various ways of trying to keep the player focused on the next point and, if they seem down after a really good shot from the opponent wins the point, reminding them it wasn't their fault, not to dwell on it and just focus again. It all seemed sensible enough (and even worked sometimes), and we all gave him plenty of vocal 'come on' type encouragement when it felt like it might help.

I was really impressed with Jonny - not only is he a solid player with some impressive shots, he is also quite the showman, easy to support (indeed, he was attracting plenty of spectators, including lots looking over the court from above, despite the competing attraction of Laura and Colin playing on the next court down) and he seems to enjoy himself most of the time! He also kept me on Court 19 despite Heather & Jonny, Laura & Colin and Kyle & Genie playing on other courts (I ended up getting in for just one game of the latter) and the lure of watching Muzz on the Hill, which takes some doing!

One thing he may need to watch (even more so as he moves into seniors) is that when he makes a really good shot, he sometimes assumes he has won the point with it and doesn't prepare for it coming back only to see it come back past him. The downside of the showman side of him coming out, perhaps, but that's understandable the first time he's on such a big stage and it shouldn't be too hard a habit to get out of - the embarrassment of being passed ought to see to that, if nothing else! Also, Janvier is a very good retriever, so it's quite possible that in the past, the handful of shots I am thinking about really wouldn't have come back!

Jonny looked like he might finish the match off in two sets but Janvier took a MTO at 5-5* deuce (I think that was the score - I didn't make notes and it is now nearly 48 hours later, so I might not be completely accurate) and whether it was genuine or not, it had the desired effect. However, the effect only lasted for a couple of games and Jonny picked himself up very well for the final set. He maybe should have closed that out earlier too but he always looked like he was going to be the winner (though of course, if you keep only just failing to break through, it only takes one bad service game to leave you in desperate trouble, so it was nerve-wracking stuff), served very well when he needed to and got close to breaking the Frenchman more than once.

Towards the end, there were some really good rallies and Janvier only survived one of them by kind of sliding out wide. Jonny was very disappointed not to win that point having played it extremely well, but in a way it worked out in his favour, because Janvier's stretch out to the side induced some cramp and although it didn't seem too bad, the result then felt even less in doubt.

We then managed to say hi to Jonny's mum at the end. Liz had been talking to her on Twitter recently, asked Martin if he knew where she was and ended up getting recognised herself (presumably from all her Twitter pics), which was rather lucky given that she thought we were looking for 'a lady with dark hair' LOL As domara won't need me to confirm, Jonny's mum seemed lovely and, while excited, remarkably composed for someone whose son had just put her through a match like that!

I caught bits of a few more matches towards the end e.g. a bit of Julian Cash's win), but not enough of anything to make any worthwhile comments. Being at a match as exciting as Jonny's and seeing more GB wins than most people there probably saw that day made it a very good day though