Could be a gag as he played an older player, really hopeful for him this year if he's in good shape, he looked a real threat on the challenger tour at the Autumn.
Not too surprising, Dan S and James M win two matches each today to make the final, beating Bothwell and Kyle Fellows respectively (Kyle managing to take a set off James but James winning the other two sets easily)
Does anyone know the current situation with Richard Bloomfield? He's played well over the last month winning a Tier 1 event and has had some great results against higher ranked players, yet is not playing at Sheffield this week? I saw him beat Marcus Walters two weeks ago and he played some great tennis!
His uncle used to post on here Mark. Richard always suffered with back problems (and lack of support!) and struggled to play full time. I know that he loves playing the sport but the grind of the tour was eroding that. I too hoped there may be something of a comback but dont know. I doubt we'll see him anywhere full time but, if he keeps his hand in I am hoping he may have a crack at the grass again in the summer.
I think i saw somrwhere bloomfield is using the bt to get a wildcard into the wimbledon wildcard playoff to get in the qualifying draw to have a chance ti play wimbledon again
I also think that, financially, the BT makes far more sense. The prize money is quite good (very good, really, for the tier 1 events). By contrast, the ITF 10k money is really shabby, especially as he'd have to play qualies (not much chance of a MD wildcard) and so would probably end up shattered, injured and for nothing.
Is he still coaching?
I assume BT is an easy way to pick up money and still have the time to coach rather than play ITF via qualifiers and the cost of travelling.
Thanks for your reply, that's pretty much as I expected things. The tour is a slog but I feel Richard is good enough to beat anyone on the futures circuit on his day. I would have thought that recent results would have given him a bit more enthusiasm and that he would have wanted to keep an ATP ranking? We'll just have to wait and see!
I can see where your coming from, I just thought 3 or 4 good events and he could his ranking get back high enough enter the main draw. Maybe he feels the pros' outweigh the cons' at the moment?
Thanks for your reply, that's pretty much as I expected things. The tour is a slog but I feel Richard is good enough to beat anyone on the futures circuit on his day. I would have thought that recent results would have given him a bit more enthusiasm and that he would have wanted to keep an ATP ranking? We'll just have to wait and see!
Sadly, Bloomers will lose his ATP singles ranking next Monday, having been ranked for the last 704 weeks, nearly 13 and a half years.
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GB on a shirt, Davis Cup still gleaming, 79 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming ... 29/11/2015 that dream came true!