QF:  (1) Lewis Burton & Marcus Willis CR 553 (277+276) vs Takashi Saito & Masato Shiga (JPN/JPN) CR 2925 (1761+1164)

A pretty shocking result at first sight, but I was half-following it on bet365 and Dome had amazing serving stats, winning over 90% on 1st serve the last time I saw the 1st serve stats come up. There was only one break in the whole match, Dome taking 1 bp from 6 and Lewis not having any bps at all.

It turns out that Dome was at US college (hence the lack of progress from his 2011 career high) and only started playing on the Pro Circuit again last summer. In August, he got a main draw WC for the Aptos Challenger and took 10 games off top 200 player Bemelmans then had a 13-3 record in Futures in September but only picked up 1 ranking point because 12 of the 13 wins were in 3 of those 128-player qualifying draws you often get in Futures in Florida and (in his case) California. He then went 8-3 in Futures in Mexico in October, again picking up just 1 ranking point for his efforts (for a win over a top 700 player), and then didn't play on the ITF Pro Circuit again until two weeks ago, when he qualified then beat another top 700 player to get another ranking point.

In other words, Dome's ranking probably doesn't tell the full story!

Singles here so far, then:

L32: Lewis Burton WR 791 lost to (Q) Andre Dome (USA) WR 1441 (CH 1025 in 2011) by 6-4 7-6(4)
L32: (2) Marcus Willis WR 388 beat Nam Ji Sung (KOR) WR 527 (CH 372 in Jun) by 6-4 7-6(2)

L16: (2) Marcus Willis WR 388 v Kento Takeuchi (JPN) WR 568 (CH 425 a year ago)

Not to take anything away from the accomplishments of a rather amazing player, but it may be that Mr Petrovic, the 8th seed, was not in full force; there's a walkover in his doubles match, which combined with his singles loss makes one wonder ....

QF:  (1) Lewis Burton & Marcus Willis CR 553 (277+276) defeated Takashi Saito & Masato Shiga (JPN/JPN) CR 2925 (1761+1164) by 4 & 4

*****

SF:  (1) Lewis Burton & Marcus Willis CR 553 (277+276) vs (4) Ivo Klec & Michael Lammer (SVK/SUI) CR 1069 (434+635)

Great! Was just looking for this result & couldn't find it anywhere. How's the other half of the draw looking?

Marcus Willis ‏@Willbomb90 30s

Very good day at office. 61 62 singles didn't put a foot wrong and 62 64 doubles v decent pair. Semis singles and final dubs tmoro. #ohyes


Well done Marcus, and to Lewis too - good luck tomorrow (and hopefully Saturday!).