I plan to be down tomorrow and Tuesday. Quite keen to have a look at some of the players I've never seen live in singles - Cox, Willis, Klein plus some of the younger ones trying to break through
Round 1 results and comments. David Parry didn't need to watch, you could hear him from miles away. I saw a bit of the Jamie P v Oishi match. Jamie was more consistent, Oishi is quite small for a tennis player.Fellows and M Porter was on the far side, but was quite close and two big lads with decent serves.
The Norwegian lad wasn't very good and I was told he didn't win a point in the first set. Thorold's match was quite close, but quite impressed with Luiggi who made quite a lot of forehand winners.
Didn't see much of Sachs Modica's match, but he was moody and threw in an underarm serve which created a bit of debate. Gleeson was a comfortable winner.
Robbie Ridout was good against a decent opponent in Sam Sutton - decent standard match. Pistorious v Dixon was a very long match, with neither player able to find winners on a regular basis. Effectively most of the points were earned by mistakes.Josh has South African roots, Troy trains on clay I believe and his dad wasn't impressed with the calls.
Round 2 results and comments. Keelan was very solid in his win. I saw the first set of Bettles v Davies, having never seen Andy play. Andy was fairly solid, but no great weapons and was pushed quite hard by the big serving Davies, who if he can cut out the errors looks a decent player.
Imran won a topsy turvy first set, he went 5-0 up, before getting pegged back to 5-5 only to break back. Imran is a good returner of serve and decent defensively, but no weapons. Mark Whitehouse has a big serve, but was a bit erratic.
Peter Bothwell retired very early with chest problems(been ill all week)
Isaac Stoute was quite impressive in his first round match, although Joe said he wasn't playing well at the moment. He was impressive in his second round match, but was really struggling at the end with a back problem. Isaac is a nice lad and played his matches in a nice spirit.
Marshall looks in good form, Clay won a tight match. Saw a bit of the Joe Salisbury match - Joe looks like a natural grass court player, with a very nice backhand. Barnaby played nicely though. It was no means a walkover.
I now know to hand why Anguelov has the reputation for repeatedly getting into arguments. The Finnish lad wasn't happy with the calls and kicked off. Didn't see any of the Skalsky match. Gleeson v Jones was very close, I left half way through the final set with Alan a break up.
Tom Allen had the task of playing a 62 YEAR OLD American and rumour has it Tom was broken straight away. To be fair it was embarrassing. The American had limited movement, so anything two foot or more either side was a winner.
Robbie Ridout v Harry Skinner was the best quality match. Robbie broke late at the end of each set. His groundstrokes were excellent against the big serving Skinner.
Peter Ashley looked in great form against Joe Cooper, I only saw a few games, but Peter looked in great form.
Dave Porter was far too good for young Josh. Adam TB won a very messy match, full of errors
As for tomorrow:
Keelan will probably beat Andy Bettles
I think Kivanda will beat Imran
Marshall will beat Bruce(another now at Gosling)
Clay should beat Adam TB(not played much, felt ill during match)
Joe will beat Anguelov
Skalsky should beat Gleeson, who needed treatment on a lower back injury and may struggle tomorrow
If Robbie plays as well tomorrow as he did today, he'll beat Tom
Peter Ashley v David Porter should be close, but expect Peter to prevail.
I few other snippets - quite a few of the main draw players were there, Liam, Luke, Milts, Harry, George Morgan(playing doubles only this week), JWH etc. George was ill all week in Turkey, hence his retirement. Harry is now based in the South of France. Rumours that a lot of the players and top coaches at the NTC are already at Nottingham.
We are underway in final qualifying for the unofficial GB futures championship - everyone who is anyone is playing this week bar Oli, Cam, Gabb and Ashley.
PS I will definitely be down tomorrow and may also send the odd tweet.
-- Edited by paulisi on Monday 8th of September 2014 11:04:35 AM
Keelan did play yesterday and won comfortably. No sign of injury.
Thanks. Got myself completely confused with first round byes and doing two rounds in one day.
Hopefully, it's nothing too bad then but, with his history, and a couple of rather unexpected losses, I do still wonder if he's carrying some sort of niggle.
Anyway, well done Bettles, and Tutu too - which is a good phrase to read out loud :)