Week 25 - Wimbledon Qualifying

Kounosuke · Intermediate Club Player

RE: Week 25 - Wimbledon Qualifying

paulisi · Tennis legend

definitely, but its best of 5 and dependant onwhether Dan's knee will hold up

-- Edited by paulisi on Wednesday 24th of June 2015 03:40:24 PM

BradMarx90 · County player

Shame about Josh and Ed, but kudos to Dan - and at least the two of them will have picked up some useful points.

Allez Evo in the FQR!

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

FQR: (q7) Jonathan Erlich & Philipp Petzschner (ISR/GER) CR 202 (89+113) defeated (qWC) Sean Thornley & Darren Walsh CR 348 (190+158) by 3 & 3 cry

Predictable, however.

DavidC · Tennis legend

It was high time the second qualifying round hoodoo was broken - I make it 17 successive defeats for British men since Chris Eaton (who went on to qualify) and Rich Bloomfield (who narrowly missed out) were successful in 2008 (Lisa Whybourn in 2010 and Naomi Cavaday in 2009 have made final qualifying since then on the women's side). Our historical record in final qualifiers on the men's side is much better than in the second qualifying round though, with several qualifiers in the decade before 2008, so I hope Evo can keep that record up.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Those statistics make a lot of sense, statistically speaking.

Qualifying for the Brits is massively biased by the wildcard system. Broadly speaking, if your ranking would justify qualifying you get a wildcard for the main draw. The Brits in qualifying usually rank 100 or more places below their opponents, sometimes worse as they are working their way back up the rankings following injury. Thinking of Katie Swann today.

Dan, who has been very watchable, focused and played some beautiful tennis is, paradoxically despite his rank, actually playing at a level consistent with his ability (at 123 he would be 19th seed, with 16 to qualify). Normal it would have been a wilcard a quick three sets and home!

Josh also played some great tennis, let's hope his game continues to go from strength to strength.

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Wednesday 24th of June 2015 07:17:13 PM

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

So we went from a Brit nearly being defaulted yesterday for hitting the linesperson to a Brit getting an official warning for non-combativity (or whatever it's called) and a Brit refusing to shake hands with the umpire today....it's all go....

Dan Evans was the man today.

Sharp and focused in the first set, really took the game to Bachinger.

In the second, the first game was really close, but he eventually lost it and seemed to lose a little pzazz. He kept trying and then definitely gave up the set. Stopped running and started chipping the ball (or barely), like you would in the park. The point where he got warned Dan did a sort of chip which, if he'd hit it properly, might have been a drop shot. But wasn't. He shouted something at the umpire about trying different shots or something. And the very next ball he hit a super winning drop shot and turned to the umpire with a 'see, I was practising my drop shots'

I had absolutely no problem with his attitude. He wasn't disrespectful to the other player, it wasn't amateur dramatics. Just 'bring on the third set'. Monfils often does it. It's like they need a mental time out, and the body can only do what it can do, keep the best for the rest.

The third set was great play. Bachinger played some super tennis. Dan was 100% in the moment. It could have gone either way. And when Dan got broken back I thought he'd had it. And was wrong

. Defended the MP with panache and then upped a gear, and Bachinger suddenly made a couple of atypical UEs, and game, set and match, Dan ....

As for Josh, I think he will be seriously sore about this match for a long time to come.

I though josh would get hammered, watched the score for the first part of the first set, and Josh barely won a point. David and Goliath.

But, in Josh style, he moved the German around, started to wear him down, found a few blinders, and - despite the major timeout for Berrer at 15-15 in the last game of the set - got the second set.

And started the third very well. But my guess is the painkillers then started to kick in because the German began to find his form again. Some really solid stuff under pressure. With Josh still playing great.

And the story of the set really is one of bad line calls - or Josh's perception of bad line calls. There were at least 4 or 5 balls called good that Josh saw out. All on the baseline on the left of the chair. I saw two of them - one I think Josh was definitely right, one I thought might have clipped the back of the line. But another one, right at the end, that I didn;t see land, was seemingly so far out that Josh was completely gobsmacked and all the spectators on the bank, in line with the baseline, were shouting "out, out" , "it was miles out" etc. etc. The umpire had quite a job restoring order.

And the final injustice (although no one's fault as such) was on one of those last BPs, long point, Berrer does a drop shot, Josh comes in, slides the ball down the line for a clean winner, and the umpire calls 'let' just before the ball bounces because one of the ballboys has dropped a ball. The umpire was within the rules, not his fault, but it made zero difference to the point, Josh had won it. But no. Really unfair.

Do hope he sees the positives, in a few days time though. It's been an excellent few weeks for him.

Ed's match was frustrating. He didn't play badly, as such, not at all. But there were two or three times in the match where he very clearly had the upper hand, it was all going for him, and he just needed to 'hammer the nail in', as the French would say. But suddenly, for no reason whatsoever, he'd hit two or three really wayward shots (usually on the forehand) and the Spaniard didn't need too many invitations. It was a sort of lack of clarity of thinking, or ruthlessness. But it really cost him. Shame. But a good week, nonetheless.

PS No sign of injury, that I could see, for any of the three players. Fingers crossed.

The Knight · Challenger qualifying

Coup Droit wrote:
And the very next ball he hit a super winning drop shot and turned to the umpire with a 'see, I was practising my drop shots'

Very good

RJA · Hall of fame

Coup Droit wrote:
And the story of the set really is one of bad line calls - or Josh's perception of bad line calls. There were at least 4 or 5 balls called good that Josh saw out. All on the baseline on the left of the chair. I saw two of them - one I think Josh was definitely right, one I thought might have clipped the back of the line. But another one, right at the end, that I didn;t see land, was seemingly so far out that Josh was completely gobsmacked and all the spectators on the bank, in line with the baseline, were shouting "out, out" , "it was miles out" etc. etc. The umpire had quite a job restoring order.

And the final injustice (although no one's fault as such) was on one of those last BPs, long point, Berrer does a drop shot, Josh comes in, slides the ball down the line for a clean winner, and the umpire calls 'let' just before the ball bounces because one of the ballboys has dropped a ball. The umpire was within the rules, not his fault, but it made zero difference to the point, Josh had won it. But no. Really unfair.

I sat on the bank watching the final set and was right in line with the baseline. I would say that at least three of the balls that Josh complained about were definitely long. The final one that left Josh enraged was at least 6 inches long. It almost defies belief that the line judge got it wrong and the umpire was unwilling to overrule such an obvious error. Combine those calls (or lack of calls) with the let on break back point and it was an utterly sickening way for a player to lose what was probably the biggest match of his career. Understandably Josh looked completely and utterly devastated and I can't imagine that he is going to get over this for quite a long time. I only hope that once he has a few days to reflect he will realise just how well he has played in the last few weeks and really take some confidence from it that can help him play at this sort of level on a much more frequent basis. Perhaps he can even use the horrible injustice of this defeat as greater motivation for the future.

Long time reader · Lower Club Player

RJA wrote:
Coup Droit wrote:
And the story of the set really is one of bad line calls - or Josh's perception of bad line calls. There were at least 4 or 5 balls called good that Josh saw out. All on the baseline on the left of the chair. I saw two of them - one I think Josh was definitely right, one I thought might have clipped the back of the line. But another one, right at the end, that I didn;t see land, was seemingly so far out that Josh was completely gobsmacked and all the spectators on the bank, in line with the baseline, were shouting "out, out" , "it was miles out" etc. etc. The umpire had quite a job restoring order.

And the final injustice (although no one's fault as such) was on one of those last BPs, long point, Berrer does a drop shot, Josh comes in, slides the ball down the line for a clean winner, and the umpire calls 'let' just before the ball bounces because one of the ballboys has dropped a ball. The umpire was within the rules, not his fault, but it made zero difference to the point, Josh had won it. But no. Really unfair.
I sat on the bank watching the final set and was right in line with the baseline. I would say that at least three of the balls that Josh complained about were definitely long. The final one that left Josh enraged was at least 6 inches long. It almost defies belief that the line judge got it wrong and the umpire was unwilling to overrule such an obvious error. Combine those calls (or lack of calls) with the let on break back point and it was an utterly sickening way for a player to lose what was probably the biggest match of his career. Understandably Josh looked completely and utterly devastated and I can't imagine that he is going to get over this for quite a long time. I only hope that once he has a few days to reflect he will realise just how well he has played in the last few weeks and really take some confidence from it that can help him play at this sort of level on a much more frequent basis. Perhaps he can even use the horrible injustice of this defeat as greater motivation for the future.

I was on the opposite side of the court to you RJA but was also right on that line.

In the second set Berrer hit a shot to that baseline which was called long (correctly I thought) and the umpire overruled it causing Josh to have a go at him and after that it was as if he lost his bottle and didn't want to overrule again.

Once the line judges changed and the woman who was on that baseline in the final set came on, basically a ball had to be feet long before it got called out as she seemed afraid to make a call. All the close calls seemed to be with Josh at that end and so he was always on the wrong end of the calls.

After the last bad call, when Josh served at 3-5 there was a ball about a foot long and she put her palms down to indicate it was good before she called it out and got a big cheer from the crowd. Also at the change of ends at 5-4 she was switched onto the sideline, which surely suggests the umpire didn't think she was doing great even though he didn't overrule her.

I saw a few games of mens doubles on the same court a bit later and there was a second serve that was clearly long at deuce and there was no overrule causing outrage from the players and I looked at the umpire and it was the same guy.

RJA · Hall of fame

I would like to nominate Stuart Fraser of the Daily Fail for the "moron of the day" award for his palpably absurd suggestion that Evo might be fined £12,750 ($20,000) for his "lack of effort" code violation.

www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/tennis/article-3138124/Dan-Evans-faces-13-000-fine-lack-effort-Wimbledon-qualifying-despite-winning-match.html

Yes it is technically a possibility, it is also technically possible that a player could be fined that amount for a code violation for "ball abuse" or an "audible obscenity" or "coaching". Anybody with an ounce of common sense knows that such a heavy fine is not going to be issued to a player in qualifying and the rule book actually suggests that apart from in very serious cases fines to players in qualifying should be limited to $2,000.

TMH · Futures qualifying

Unlike the Mail to go for the most controversial, irrelevant headline possible.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Shame there is no fine for lazy journalism (not giving best effort) when it comes to accuracy or relevance.

The story is Dan is back to the sort of form that got him into the world top 150 and playing the type of compulsive tennis that makes you want to watch and support him, there was no lack of effort the place was humming. This in context of his knee injury and now potentially going to five sets; firing up the crowd who were all palpably in his corner; controversial colloquial use of the French verb "to go" with a broad brummajum twist, CD probably had palpitations, now that begins to make a story.

What a waste of ink printing second hand gossip. Anybody going down today is in for a potential treat definitely worth 20p on the door to a dogs charity. Sorry I am indifferent to dogs and even I coughed up. As Paul Weller would say " now that's entertainment "

"Allez!!!" for today as they say in Basall Heath

EddietheEagle · County player

The problems of the second set derived (possibly) from his relative lack of fitness. He was blowing at 4-1 or 4-2 first set after a couple of particularly heavy exchanges with Bachinger after which you could see the life dropping out of his game as he struggled more to make balls and his error count increasing accordingly. He managed to get over the line during that set but proceeded to concede points with a string of errors and then made it fairly obvious to all with his blatant tanking. Nine of twelve games had gone to his opponent during that period. I don't think the umpire had much choice really over the warning. I thought Evans made a good decision to leave the court and gather himself for that final set. The transformation in his game at that point was stark as he pretty much managed to replicate his performance in the first set with that scintillating brand of tennis which characterises him. His backhand, slice in particular, is a joy to watch when he's in full flow, using it to defuse any incoming aggression as well as in attack. Easily the match of the day and kudos to both him and Bachinger, the latter playing a pretty solid match from start to finish.

RJA · Hall of fame

I have seen a few comments about Dan's knee and the potential problem of playing a 5 set match. Well I have watched pretty much every point he has played this week and there hasn't been the slightest hint of a problem so hopefully playing the best of 5 sets won't be any problem.

Unfortunately I won't be there today as I have other commitments and a 235 mile round journey is a bit excessive just to watch one match.