Tie break time.

3-3 at the change

argh loses TB to 5

into a decider

now 2-5*

I am not sure that anything I could say about today's results would be suitable for a family friendly website

The worst part is that he had 35 year old Jan Hernych WR 202 waiting for him in the final round. Hernych has had the odd good result recently but plenty of terrible ones as well. A route through Grand Slam qualifying against WRs 159, 200 and 202 is about as good as anyone can ask for so this was a big opportunity that has been missed.

I wonder if James will play that Italian challenger that he has entered next week or whether it might not be better to write the clay season off as a disaster and get some extra grass court practice prior to the Manchester challenger.

Bah, does nothing for James' ranking since his '19th best' of 10 is more than his 8 from here to replace his 35 from last year for qualifying.

Updated points as at 08/06 : 503 - 35 + 10 = 478 + possible net Italian Challenger and Manchester Challenger additions.

Certainly got a few weeks of grass court season opportunities to add and WR 100 points have of late been drifting down to currently 526. It is from 20th July on that he really starts to have a lot of points to defend, eg. 185 in total from 20/07 to 17/08 inclusive. The next few weeks look like the real window for upping his ranking.