Ed lost his serve from 40-15 up. Missed the points as I was responding to CD, but heard Ed complain that his play was "criminal" and then heard him drop his racquet.....so suspect he was at fault rather than good play from the Swiss.

Ed *3-5. Ed had chances on both the previous 2 Swiss service games, including 2 BPs last time up. His opponent is clearly someone who gets tight under stress (his first serve disappeared), but Ed making a few too many errors on the BH to break through, as his own commentary confirms.....

Coup Droit wrote:

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As you're obviously watching the matches, Korriban, do you think that RJA had a point when he sort of said that Dave Rice forces players to play badly ? i.e. Chiudinelli is playing well today because he likes Ed's consistent pace and rhythm whereas Dave's chips and half-pace balls, and occasional hard hit balls, mix it up so much that Chiudinelli got miffed and made a lot of UE because he hated playing him ?

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Yes. Definitely. Dave gave him lots of half court balls (I still maintain NOT by design, but by being tentative, and the Swiss had lots of time to decide what to do, and often did very little. Today he's got less time to think, so is just hitting the right shot.

But probably more importantly the Swiss serve was working poorly against Dave.....lots of DFs and a lower first serve percentage than today.

Shhh wrote:

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The Swiss leads 5-3 yet, I still seem to expect Ed to win this. Odd.

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And so Ed of course loses.  Its weird though, I expected Jade to win last night when behind......I guess some people you just think of as fighters!  

Pleased Ed got his first challenger wins, I see he's moving onto clay now, I can't remember when he last played on the dirt???????

Have to give credit to the Swiss for set 1. But definitely feel he was gifted a break in the second set by Ed, and from then on there was little to choose between them, with Ed probably starting to shade it by the middle of the set. He's definitely not too far away at this level....I reckon this is where he belongs.

Overall 3 things cost Ed today.

1. Very poor return of serve. Took a set and a half for Ed to get to work on the first serve, and did not much more on the second.

2. Far too many BH unforced errors, slice, top spin, everything.

3. A focus on the Chiudinelli BH for too long - Ed did switch it around eventually, but his strength was pretty obvious from the first 2 or 3 games. 

Ed can do well in CH hard court tournaments on this form, but I fear for him on clay, becuase he doesn't have a big weapon off either wing, and he won't be rewarded by coming to the net so much.....but he DOES need to test himself.

stevemcqueen wrote:

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Ed will be disappointed, but it has still been a good tournament for him. If Ed  had won, he would have been able to have a word with Marco  re. his poor sportmanship in the previous round.   You can only pass comment on poor behaviour if you come away with the win.

There was a big difference in rankings, so Ed can't be too upset....

 

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 I counted 5 times while I was watching that Chiudinelli stopped the match for at least 30 seconds mid game......every single time when Ed had won the previous point......including 3 trips to his bag for something or other, 1 completely unreasonable tirade to the umpire when Ed passed him FH DTL claiming it was out, and the longest break for another complaint (no idea what about) where he tried to involve Ed but from the tone of Ed's response (could NOT hear the precise words) was given short shrift. Poor behaviour.