Alex WARD/Taro DANIEL v Erik CREPALDI/Georgio PORTALURI (ITA)
The winners of this match play the number one seeds.
(If you had a schoolboy sense of humour (which I don't bien sur), you could think of a lot of quips about the convenience of Crepaldi meeting the Portaluri . . . .)
Alex off to a good start and is now serving at *4-1
I am tempted to say he is already a double break up, but it would be more accurate to say that he has held serve once, and all the other games have gone against the serve so far. So he is up a "hold".
Alex serves for the match at *5-4 in the 2nd but Rungkat gets to 0-30 then from 30-30 creates a break point but Alex saves it and moves to match point. Rungkat saves that though and creates another break point and this time he takes it
6-2 5-5*
__________________
GB on a shirt, Davis Cup still gleaming, 79 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming ... 29/11/2015 that dream came true!
Fingers crossed for Alex to come through this match. Mr Delic has recently come into some significant form, with a couple of Futures tournament wins and a Challenger profile that looks very much like Alex's with a lot of success in the qualifiers, albeit less so once qualified. So should be a test for both players.
Alex has a stack of points to defend over the balance of the year, having played a blinder in Thailand and Cambodia over 4-5 weeks late last year (so I guess the solo Asian tour CAN be a points bonanza, after all, although Neil Pauffley may disagree - perhaps going out VERY late in the season helps with both weather and even weaker fields).
I think most of us are impressed with Alex's intent this year to stick at Challengers and big Futures on the clay and he has shown some flashes of genuine form (good wins and close losses to quality players) that suggests a jump in class is not out of the question..... however the reality is that he's already entered 23 tournaments this season and he's yet to reach 60 ranking points (less than half his running total), so he needs to start going deeper quickly to be rewarded for his boldness. I'd love to see this happen - if only to encourage his colleagues!