I hope it's OK to start this one - Neil is the only non-Asian player in the tournament, seems quite a far-off thing to be trying (literally!) - wish him luck, and at least it'll give us some new names to conjure with . .
R32 : Neil PAUFFLEY (GBR) (5) v. Ruikai WANG (CHN) wr 1333
If Neil wins this one, he has another easy match (on paper) against either WR 881 or WR 1346. And then the second seed in the QF.
-- Edited by steven on Monday 5th of August 2013 02:09:37 PM
Edited in the missing "j" in the title - easy to miss! Zhangjiagang is part of Suzhou City, where a WTA 125K Challenger is being held this week, so it may be combined with that tournament but named differently. Just realised that's an old ranking too, so with new ones:
L32: (5) Neil Pauffley WR 417 v Wang Ruikai (CHN) WR 1342 (CH 1198 last Sep)
Wang has lost his last 5 matches.
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GB on a shirt, Davis Cup still gleaming, 79 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming ... 29/11/2015 that dream came true!
Thanks for that Steven. I was staring at the small print, trying to decide if it was a 'j' or an 'i' - didn't realise it had both!
I wouldn;t have put it up but I had this vision of poor Neil waking up in far-flung China, all on his own, and seeing everyone else's matches on the list but not his! Another Bambi moment, I'm afraid . . .
Thanks for that Steven. I was staring at the small print, trying to decide if it was a 'j' or an 'i' - didn't realise it had both!
I wouldn;t have put it up but I had this vision of poor Neil waking up in far-flung China, all on his own, and seeing everyone else's matches on the list but not his! Another Bambi moment, I'm afraid . . .
Good luck to him.
I often feel that Neil is actually in his element travelling the world to far flung places on his own, in the search for points.
Very happy to see Pauffers staying good to his plan to go it alone and travel out to Asia. He made a good basis for it when I spoke to him at Notts, and as Bob says he enjoys being out there by himself so why not.
Looks like a solid 1st round win, so fingers crossed he can amass a boatload of points on this trip.
Neil seems to have retired 3-6 0-1 down in the 2nd round. He served up quite a few double faults before being broken towards the end of the 1st set but dont know what happened.
The little we can gauge from the scores suggests to me it's possible that it was his back playing up again and that after losing the 1st set, he decided he'd be better off resting up for next week. I hope it wasn't more serious than that, though obviously chronic back problems are particularly unwelcome for a tennis player.
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GB on a shirt, Davis Cup still gleaming, 79 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming ... 29/11/2015 that dream came true!