Week 8 - Challenger (€42,500) - Cherbourg, France (hard)

emma · Strong Club Player

RE: Week 8 - Challenger (€42,500) - Cherbourg, France (hard)

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Liam up and running on ATP livestream

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Liam's backhand being attacked, and it breaks down again, and he loses the first set 7-5

freerider · Futures level

Liam guilty of shanking it on occasion.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Cherbourg not a happy hunting ground or our singles players this week as Liam goes down 7-5 6-2 to Arnaboldi, who overpower him a bit in that second set.

James · Satellite level

Played way below his best. As others have mentioned he struggled on low forehands and seemed to be having a few problems producing any width on his BH when attempting to pass Arnaboldi.

-- Edited by James on Tuesday 24th of February 2015 10:16:56 PM

paulisi · Tennis legend

Very disappointing.
Too many errors, especially on the high backhand and around the net. Arnaboldi was very good defensively, had a big serve and was much more solid. Liam struggled to find winners, mainly due to good defence and tried to force too much.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Bob in Spain wrote:
Cherbourg not a happy hunting ground or our singles players this week as Liam goes down 7-5 6-2 to Arnaboldi, who overpower him a bit in that second set.

yes, it's been a real downer.

so glad you didn't make the mega journey . . . (although maybe if you had ?????) smile

philwrig · Hall of fame

Tough one, probably a match he would have won late last year. Liam just needs to keep working/training hard, continue to believe in himself and he can turn this around in a couple of weeks. Small margins in these tournaments between getting on a roll and reaching finals, and also losing well contested matches in the 1st round.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

For the record:

L32: Andrea Arnaboldi (ITA) WR 203 (CH = 165 in June last year) defeated Liam Broady WR 181 by 5 & 2 cry

RJA · Hall of fame

Australian Open aside Liam has had an awful start to the year with his only wins coming against Grills (WR 693) and Venus (WR 397) with the latter being a pretty close run thing. Also his defeats have all been in straight sets with the Kokkinakis match being the only one that you could take many positives from.

He could really do with a good run in Quimper next week, after which he looks like having at least 2 weeks off.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Unfortunately for Liam, his mood won't be any better when he comes off court and looks at the football results.

philwrig · Hall of fame

Bob in Spain wrote:
Unfortunately for Liam, his mood won't be any better when he comes off court and looks at the football results.

Ahh but when he started they were losing 2-0, so a minor silver lining only losing 2-1. I wonder whether he did actually follow the score before he went onto court.

indiana · Tennis legend

If one wants to judge Liam against his form of the latter few months of 2014, he has maybe, aside from the Aussie Open, arguably had a generally "awful start to the year".

I tend to agree with Phil here that he could turn it round in a few weeks with a decent run of results. Still in a hell of a lot better place than he looked during his summer futures run in the USA last summer when I was one who certainly had concerns then.

So much more healthy that he has now shown what he can do and he can certainly get back to that and better again before too long.

paulisi · Tennis legend

He had a terrible start last season. I remember seeing him get battered by Bloomers...