Thought this was worth cross posting.

Daisy posted it in the QF thread but perhaps hadn't noticed that the SF now has it's own thread.

NEC Birmingham 16000 - has Florence and the Machine booked 19th Sept ...
Manchester Arena 21000 - has Florence and the Machine booked 18th Sept ... Manch Central = conference
NIA Birmingham 12000 - has Michael McIntyre booked 18th/19th Sept ...
Hydro in Glasgow 12000 has Florence and the Machine playing Mon 14th Sept and Mrs Brown on Wed 16th Sept.

ARENAS WITH CAPACITY OF 8000+ (SEMI-FINAL) and are not shown as 'booked'

Emirates Glasgow 7700 (apparently it might be possible to extend to 9000)
Echo Arena in Liverpool 12000
First Direct Arena in Leeds 13000
Odyssey in Belfast 10000
Wembley Arena 12500

thejester wrote:

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Absolutely BiS. That is not going to be an easy tie, regardless of where we play and on what surface. Kyrgios is a dangerous player, Groth is a behemoth, Hewitt is still more than capable of an upset and I read Tennis Australia are looking to welcome Tomic back into the fold. I don't want to discount Kokkinakis either, who's making solid strides in his development. Obviously with Andy on board we have a great chance, but I refuse to let myself look past this tie. Sincerely hoping it's staged somewhere where I can make it to watch as I've never seen the DC live before

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 I hope they do welcome Tomic back in time for the semi final, he appears to have all the mental fortitude of wet paper.

LordBrownof wrote:

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I'd be surprised. From the BBC article at least, Tennis Australia are essentially saying "Tomic is welcome back providing he grovels for forgiveness and admits he's been incredibly lucky to receive all the support we've given him".

From what I've read, it's not the kind of olive branch people are making out. And certainly not one John Tomic will respond particularly well to!

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John Tomic comes across as something of a moron, so I agree he's unlikely to respond well (to anything that might mean shelving his pride)

I imagine the whole fiasco is very much six of one and half-a-dozen of the other. I think Bernard will be fine without the Australian federation's support, but his sister Sara (?) looks likely to be the one who loses out from the ridiculous posturing on both sides

philwrig wrote:

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My main concern is the tie's proximity to the end of the US open. The QF showed that even with Andy not reaching the final at Wimby, it was still touch and go whether he had the mental/physical stamina to play 3 days on the bounce, and none of those days involved a 5 setter. It's likely that all the Aussies will be very fresh, as their not likely to reach the latter rounds of the US. It will be interesting to see how difficult it will be for Andy to focus on the US, with arguably the most important DC tie we've played in our history, just around the corner. This quite likely will be Andy's best chance of winning this event.

For what it's worth I think that the Emirates is heavy odds on favourite to host the tie.

-- Edited by philwrig on Wednesday 22nd of July 2015 02:58:38 PM

-- Edited by philwrig on Wednesday 22nd of July 2015 02:59:10 PM

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I worry too about andy playing three matches Surely we can summon a doubles partnership capable of beating the Aussies without Andy I would go for Fleming and Jamie Murray myself