Lost count of the number of MPs young Danny saved before converting the third of his:

QF:  (Q) Daniel Manlow UNR defeated (WC) Connor Smith (USA) WR 1383 by 6-4 4-6 6-4

so

SF:  (Q) Daniel Manlow UNR vs (2) Dan Smethurst WR 272

Amazing stuff from Danny - I know the opponents he has beaten this week haven't been in the top 800, but he has now won 6 matches in a row, beaten the players who upset both seeds in his section (Ed and Josh) and, since it is a 15K, gone from 0 to 8 ATP singles points in 3 days!

Those 8 points should see him enter the rankings on Monday week about halfway up, i.e. around WR 1100 out of a total of 2200 ranked players at the moment!

Just shows what can happen if you call your son Daniel and give him a tennis racket !

NB Does anyone know if Dan Man has now graduated? And is 'officially' on tour? Looking at his age, he may well be - and I seem to remember some of the other tournaments were in the vacations. But not sure . . . . he could still be in his senior year. Fingers crossed there are more GB college lads (Joe Sainsbury, Lloyd Glasspool and others), just waiting to launch their pro-careers . . .

Go Dan

korriban wrote:

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Bob in Spain wrote:

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Go Dan

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I'd love to know what Dan has added to his game this year which seems to have worked so spectacularly well. His forehand had the potential to be a weapon of real spite and venom, but his backhand simply had nothing to recommend it in terms of attacking options - a steady and accurate slice, but an unreliable inaccurate and barely used 2 handed topspin. Has he improved the latter, taken the former to top 50 levels or is it some other mental or tactical masterstroke......

 

Whatever it is, I'm really rooting for him to keep the run going and going.....the more top 200 players we have, the more likelihood they can start to travel in bigger and bigger groups to Challengers, with all the associated benefits of companionship, sharing costs, practice partners, scouting opponents for each other, support from the sidelines, doubles, etc.

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I agree. It's interesting. I never saw him play before Champaign so I never saw the 'old' Dan - in fact,, it's a problem coz as there's little streaming for the lower matches, as long as they stay in the lower match level, you never get to see them,, apart from live, if you can. However, the scores spoke for themselves, which were pretty poor last year.

Reading from a lot of stuff, including here, everyone agrees the forehand was a big weapon. And the backhand was a lot weaker. So there may well be a bit of both, as you suggest.

My own pet theory is that it is primarily simply confidence. He could so easily have lost in qualifying in Champaign (third set tie-breaks and all that). And in the first round. If that had been the case I don;t think he'd be anywhere near where he is now. Within a certain range, there's not a lot between a whole swathe of players. And Dan is the perfect age - getting stronger, fitter, more experienced, it all sort of clicking.

 

I agree with most of whats said above re-Dans improvements. Dan had always won random futures but there was nothing really put together over a spell. I am sure his game has improved but so much of it comes down to the most important 6" on the body........the bit between the ears. Some sort of belief must have grown from that challenger or around that time. Some times it can just be someone getting sick and tired of being sick and tired all the time.........something changed thats for sure.

And I wonder if the fitness was something he worked on pre-Champaign ? i.e. between Wirral and Champaign - Unlikely, though it's all a question of degree so maybe.
Or something that he worked on hard during the off-season BECAUSE of Champaign?
i.e. did doing so well at Champaign (where his fitness can't have been bad, given the long matches but maybe he got slightly lucky) and this suddenly give him the impetus to really up his work ethic and put in the slog hours?
I also heard from a friend who watched him last year that he used to run round his backhand a lot. This needs a LOT of fitness. So maybe if he has more faith in his backhand now, he runs round it less and doesn't even need to be quite so fit.
A supposedly dodgy backhand is a real 'head' thing - Tim Henman said he could miss one top-spin one and then spend the entire match slicing the ball. Whereas he could miss any number of forehands and still be completely confident that he'd make the next one. All in the mind. I doubt Dan's technique is fundamentally changed. It's a chicken and egg thing too - if you spend all the time running round the backhand and not using it, it gets worse. Then you lose even more faith in it. So you run round even more. And so on . . .