Salaba has a career high of 859 from last year, though hopefully won't give Kyle too much trouble.

Gard is a former top 250 player (CH 224 in 2008) who beat Oli 6-0 5-7 6-1 when they met in Edinburgh Fut. QF in 2011

Bob in Spain wrote:

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RJA wrote:

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Bob in Spain wrote:

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The timetable today seems very strange. The match prior to Kyle is still early in the first set, and yet Kyle still has two matches to play today (hopefully). So if his first match doesn't start until about 4pm, that is going to be a tough ask and a very late finish.

Why didn't they start the qualies yesterday ?

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Challengers in the second week of a slam often start a day late. It doesn't make any difference because most challengers play two rounds of qualifying on the first day anyway as qualifying is only supposed to last two days (tournaments need permission of the ATP to play qualifying over 3 days).

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Then surely it would make sense to play 1 match on the first day when there are 16 L32 matches to play and then double up on the 2nd day, when they could play 8 L16 matches and then give the players suitable rest before the final 4 QFs.  Trying to cram 24 matches in on day 1 just seem silly to me.

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It is pretty standard to play two qualifying rounds on the first day. It happens at most challengers and ATP 250 events (ditto British futures). Part of the reason is that ATP rules stipulate that if a player plays two qualifying matches on the final day of qualifying he must not play a main draw match the following day. 24 matches in a day shouldn't be a problem and given that they have only used 4 courts they are obviously confident of getting things done. They may well have lights in which case going late isn't a problem.

EDIT: They do indeed have lights

-- Edited by RJA on Sunday 1st of September 2013 12:34:03 PM

not a great start from oli losing his service game to 15. 0-2*

Gard is serving for the 1st set now. I must admit, when I first saw the draw, I remembered Gard and my first thought was "banana skin" - I hope Oli can turn it around so Gard doesn't turn out to be one after all.

Oli's serve has been letting him down, serve stats are very poor.

L32: (7) James Ward WR 174 v Yannik Reuter (BEL) WR 324 (CH 291 in July)

RJA wrote:

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These slow starts from Oli are really starting to worry me.

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 I agree. It's weird. He's even got Julien with him this time so he's going to be properly warmed up, psyched up, all the necessary . . .

 

Well, at least the second set was easy. 6-1. Now for the third.