Week 39 - Spain F32 ($15,000) - Sevilla (Clay)

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

RE: Week 39 - Spain F32 ($15,000) - Sevilla (Clay)

steven · Tennis legend

... and so ends Roca Batalla's 11-set winning streak!

johnnylad · Tennis legend

Holds to love to begin the third set

korriban · Challenger level

This Spaniard has to be the ultimate under-ranked ringer you could possibly want to draw in a first round. SF, SF, WIN in his last 3 Spanish futures, and as Steven pointed out, 10 straight sets won coming into this match.

From assuming Alex would walk this match, I'm thinking that its actually one of those really nasty testers which, should he come through it, will set him up brilliantly for the task ahead - to win the tournament and pick himself up 27 points......a realistic ambition on current form.

Come on!

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Always good to be a glass-half-full sort of person :::)))

I'm remembering (correctly?) steven's previous tweet that in the last 5 futures that Alex has played he hasn't ever got beyond the QFs. I'm thinking that I'd be happy if he even made the second round at the moment!

steven · Tennis legend

Coup Droit wrote:
Always good to be a glass-half-full sort of person :::)))

I'm remembering (correctly?) steven's previous tweet that in the last 5 futures that Alex has played he hasn't ever got beyond the QFs. I'm thinking that I'd be happy if he even made the second round at the moment!

Worse than that - Alex had played 14 Futures in 2013 before this week:

- 6 R1 losses
- 2 R2 losses
- 6 QFs (and nothing beyond that)

You'd almost class him as that very rare case, a Brit who can't hack it at Futures level but can step up to Challengers! wink

johnnylad · Tennis legend

droppped serve 3-4*

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Brilliant stats steven.

If you read those, on face value, you'd certainly say that that player shouldn't even consider Challengers - complete waste of time. I wonder what gives . . . (as Alex gets broken and is now 3-4* down in the third)

johnnylad · Tennis legend

kind of fell away there

steven · Tennis legend

Alex goes down 6-3 2-6 6-3

and now has the following records this year:

14-15 (48%) in Futures main draws (+ 2-0 in qualies)
6-7 (46%) in Challenger main draws (i.e. hardly any difference!)
19-10 (66%) in Challengers including qualifying, where he is 13-3 (81%)
4-3 (57%) in ATPs including qualifying (4-2 in Q, 0-1 main draw)

steven · Tennis legend

Apparently the ITF livescores app doesn't tell the whole story (presumably game penalties got added towards the end to get to the 6-3):

Julien Hoferlin: "its 43 defaulted because of too long toilet break !!!! Its amazing and disgusting from the supervisor .... When a guy is ill "

RJA · Hall of fame

This is turning into a pretty crappy week for British men's tennis.

steven · Tennis legend

The problem is, the supervisors probably feel they have to be fairly draconian about this because so many players try to take advantage of the toilet break rule. Which of course means that if you are trying to play the system, you get back just in time to achieve your aim but avoid a penalty, whereas if you're really unwell, you might not be able to get back in time.

It has parallels with the fact that tennis players are for more likely to get caught for taking banned substances if they don't know there is a banned substance in something they ingest than if they are actually trying to cheat, in which case they'll know what they are taking and how to avoid getting caught.

Oh for a world in which everyone was honest and there was no need for token rules that catch out the relatively innocent while still letting the guilty get off scott-free ...

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

RJA wrote:
This is turning into a pretty crappy week for British men's tennis.

Agreed. Roll on next Monday and we can do it all again - hopefully a bit better this time.

Is it just Dan C left this week ?

korriban · Challenger level

Bob in Spain wrote:
RJA wrote:
This is turning into a pretty crappy week for British men's tennis.
Agreed. Roll on next Monday and we can do it all again - hopefully a bit better this time.
Is it just Dan C left this week ?

And Marcus, Bob!