Week 12 - Challenger ($40,000+H) - Panama City, Panama (Clay)

steven · Tennis legend

Week 12 - Challenger ($40,000+H) - Panama City, Panama (Clay)

LouieG · County player

Ward's hopes here?

TMH · Futures qualifying

Got to fancy the Portuguese man on this surface sadly.

Mind you it wouldn't be the first time Ward has proved me wrong...

-- Edited by TMH on Saturday 15th of March 2014 11:51:38 PM

LouieG · County player

Ward about to start 0-0*

paulisi · Tennis legend

2*-3

paulisi · Tennis legend

and Wardy gets broken 2-4*

paulisi · Tennis legend

First set gone 6-2

steven · Tennis legend

L32: James Ward WR 155 lost to Gastão Elias (POR) WR 169 (CH 103 in May) by 2 & 1

Ouch!

Bright Spark · Lower Club Player

And lost the second 6-1

edit: beaten to it!

-- Edited by Bright Spark on Tuesday 18th of March 2014 04:48:01 PM

RJA · Hall of fame

Well this looked like a bizarre piece of scheduling at the time and with hindsight it looks like a staggeringly stupid bit of scheduling.

LouieG · County player

Should have played in Canada

indiana · Tennis legend

OK, it's not gone well. But is it really so bizarre / stupid ?

James is hardly a mug on clay. There is also a Davis Cup tie coming up on clay, in which I presume there is a very good chance he will be involved ( if so, playing better than this hopefully ! ). So, his participation here could be good for the GB team and himself for possible ranking points if say he beat the Italy no 2 in a live match.

RJA · Hall of fame

indiana wrote:
OK, it's not gone well. But is it really so bizarre / stupid ?

James is hardly a mug on clay. There is also a Davis Cup tie coming up on clay, in which I presume there is a very good chance he will be involved ( if so, playing better than this hopefully ! ). So, his participation here could be good for the GB team and himself for possible ranking points if say he beat the Italy no 2 in a live match.

He could have played Masters Series qualifying or a weak hard court challenger so yes I think this was bizarre scheduling.

Doonan · Intermediate Club Player

Well I'm assuming this was his last opportunity to play on clay before the Davis Cup (without going all the way to Colombia and back to Italy), so maybe not that bizarre. Plus he would have only just made it into Miami qualifying so no guarantee there either. I imagine he was probably told to get some clay practice in before Davis Cup.