I didn't see either match. Looks like a solid win for James and a ridiculous performance again from Dan.

Why ridiculous? Well from the sound of it from all the comments, and for reasons only Dan will know, he didn't seem to care about winning or losing. It appears his objective was to roll through the match as quickly as possible - if he won the match, great, if not, so be it. Common sense, coaching gospel, and years of matchplay tell all players that they need to take their time, focus and visualise what they want to do even more than usual when in a sticky situation.....serving out a match or BPs down. The fact that he only won about 20% of his second serve points and lost ALL 6 of his BP against points tells me he wasn't concentrating, wasn't thinking, or didn't care or try enough when under pressure. His opponent is a good player, but not a great player.

I don't mind if a player loses, so long as they are doing their best. Alex Ward battled hard yesterday against a slightly better player, saving countless BPs against, never giving up, but ultimately came up short. He's miles behind Dan's potential, but it's hard not to respect Alex's attitude and approach at the moment, whereas it's hard to find anything positive at all to say about Dan when he acts like this. Too good to practice, perhaps. Too good to prepare properly, perhaps. Too good to try, perhaps. Miles from home, and doesn't want to be there, perhaps.

The LTA coaches will have seen this match, of course. And Dan will know this perfectly well. It wouldn't surprise me that he has already already been dropped by them, told he won't have his funding renewed next year or that he is on some kind of probation. If not, he knows he's going to get a rocket for this performance.