Week 30 - Challenger ($125,000) - Astana II, Kazakhstan (Hard)

Jeff Stelling · Club Coach

RE: Week 30 - Challenger ($125,000) - Astana II, Kazakhstan (Hard)

Jaffa · Challenger level

Clearly he is mentally not with it at the moment, at 6-3 4-3* he had a BP, didn't take it then proceeded to lose 9 of the last 10 games

Spectator · All-time great

Stircrazy wrote:
Dave Rice really branching out now:
R1: Ilija Bozoljac (SRB) & Dave Rice CR 556 (336+219) vs Roberto Ortega & Jaime Pulgar (ESP/ESP) CR 662 (327+335)
Bozo at least has a bit of pedigree: he & his fellow Serb, Goran Tosic, took the title in Recanati yesterday, beating Cluskey & Grigelis (also unseeded) in three.

Mr Bozoljac has more pedigree than that: his doubles CH is 122 and he and Zimonjic were responsible for the victory over the Bryan Brothers that set up the Serbian Davis Cup triumph over the US a few years ago. He's also, if the ATP site is to be believed, responsible for the only 1 on 2 doubles match in Davis Cup history: "2013 -- Won doubles rubber 15-13 in fifth set (w/Zimonjic) versus United States to help Serbia reach Davis Cup SFsCompeted for Serbia (w/Zimonjic) in 3-2 Davis Cup SF win over CanadaPart of Serbias team for Davis Cup final versus Czech Republic at Belgrade; partnered Bozoljac in doubles rubber (l. to Berdych-Stepanek)" Err....

Jesting aside, quite an impressive partner - hope that they enjoy a good tournament together.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

L32: Kyle Edmund WR 267 (= CH smile ) vs (Q) Temur Ismailov (UZB) WR 538 (CH = 534 last week)
L32: (WC) Dmitry Popko (KAZ) WR 1168 (CH = 1128 in October last year) vs Dave Rice WR 329 (CH = 283 in February this year)

BeefyDeedz · Pro player

Well done to Kyle on a new CH after a decent few weeks. Should make the second round here with that Q draw and then has a decent shot at a QF.

TMH · Futures qualifying

Incidentally Ismailov is less than a week younger than Kyle and a former junior CR 28.

Most of his points have come in weak Asian events. Won a Futures title four weeks ago, beating Oli's conqueror in the final.

Kyle shouldn't have too many problems.

-- Edited by TMH on Monday 21st of July 2014 01:50:46 PM

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Dave R is first up tomorrow for the early risers at 5.30am UK time. The match is on Centre Court so will very likely be streamed.

Kyle is 2nd match on Centre Court, straight after Dave.

philwrig · Hall of fame

Disappointing for Oli, he's not far off though making a big breakthrough. Hopefully he'll find the right way forward soon.

paulisi · Tennis legend

Ever since Portugal where Oli had to play back to back games for numerous days due to the weather has his form dipped.

The majority of the dip in form comes later in the match and his service percentage drops alarmingly. I wonder if he has either some sort of fatigue syndrome/long term virus.

RJA · Hall of fame

paulisi wrote:
Ever since Portugal where Oli had to play back to back games for numerous days due to the weather has his form dipped.

The majority of the dip in form comes later in the match and his service percentage drops alarmingly. I wonder if he has either some sort of fatigue syndrome/long term virus.

An alternative possibility is that his fitness simply isn't good enough.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

RJA wrote:
paulisi wrote:
Ever since Portugal where Oli had to play back to back games for numerous days due to the weather has his form dipped.

The majority of the dip in form comes later in the match and his service percentage drops alarmingly. I wonder if he has either some sort of fatigue syndrome/long term virus.
An alternative possibility is that his fitness simply isn't good enough.

smile

Yes, it's possible, that like Kudla who's just been diagnosed with glandular fever, Oli has a hidden virus.

Or (more likely) that he just lack fitness fullstop.

Or - and this is my view from seeing him at Wimbly qualies, including the bit three-set loss - that his fitness is actually pretty impressive (I'd expected it to be worse).

Which leaves you really with the possibility that his head doesn't know how to tell his body to close out a match. (After all, the closing out problems are always, by definition, later in the match).

And this would be my guesstimate.

(I still believe that team tennis would do him a world of good (and would have done him even more good if he'd grown up with it). Has he thought about signing up in France or Germany for next year?? It's about the time to go and do it).

However, it might just be a bad patch. He only needs one or two good wins and it might be very different. Like Phil, I feel he's close to making a breakthrough.

Spectator · All-time great

Well, last year when he was being written off for bad results, it turned out to be at least partially injury, so caution does indeed seem to be in order. Hope that he and those working with him can sort through whatever the issue is.

murray_2k9 · Challenger qualifying

It is disappointing with Oli - he looked like things had clicked and then seemingly regressed.

RJA · Hall of fame

Coup Droit wrote:
Like Phil, I feel he's close to making a breakthrough.

I know that this sounds contradictory but I think Oli is both close to a breakthrough and along way from it. I get the feeling that it only needs a couple of small things to click but that at the moment those small things aren't likely to happen.

Priesty · Challenger level

Ricey currently 3-6 6-2 1-0*....