Week 32 - Challenger (€42,500) Portoroz, Slovenia (hard)

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Week 32 - Challenger (€42,500) Portoroz, Slovenia (hard)

Madadman · Masters Series Champion

Even though he has to qualify good to see josh persist with Challenegers.

BradMarx90 · County player

QR2: (q3) Josh Milton WR 329 vs Enrico Becuzzi (ITA) UNR

Match just started.

Spaced · Lower Club Player

Josh quickly wraps up the 1st set 6-1

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

As Josh charges on, worth noting that Becuzzi is 42 years old (42!)

And was only ever ranked 1400 in singles (he's currently 958 in doubles)

All credit to the guy for trying - and for winning his first match !

Spaced · Lower Club Player

QR2: (q3) Josh Milton WR 329 defeats Enrico Becuzzi (ITA) UNR by 1&0

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Josh will get Hugo Nys next. Who is hardly a scary prospect. Some really poor (on paper) losses recently (lost in Dublin in R1 to Bjorn Thomson) and is only ranked where he is thanks to a couple of good runs in Sharm/Turkey, for instance, against lowly ranked opposition (not saying he hasn't got any decent victories at all, of course, but he's slightly over-ranked, in my opinion)

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

FQR: (q3) Josh Milton WR 329 vs (q6) Hugo Nys (FRA) WR 448 (CH = 374 in July last year)

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Josh's match is on livestream.

Already a break up.

Nys with a lot of unforced errors.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

First set:

Pretty easy and basic - Josh wins the first set 6-2

Only one poor-ish game, when he got broken at 4-1 up. And even that one he nearly held.

Second set:

Nys completely changes tactics, stepping into the court and trying to hit clean winners straigh off and rushing the net whenever he can.

Which is smart, as he was getting trounced from the baseline in the rallies. And he's a tall guy so covers the net well, and handy with the volley, and can take the ball high and early for the winner.

Josh 0-3 down

Then manages to keep the ball deeper and holds serve, although not easily. And Nys throws in a bad game, and it's back on serve.

Josh finds a few more first serves, Hugo keeps up the same tactics, and it's 4-5, Josh serving to stay in the set.

And, at 5-6 down, Josh plays well, in a tricky game, to force the tie-break.

The tie-break was tight - very small margins - but Josh comes through 7-5

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Monday 10th of August 2015 09:41:40 AM

indiana · Tennis legend

Yay, well done Josh

Now let's have a good match-up in the main draw.

Thanks for the reporting, CD, I just looked in on the live scoring at TB time.

-- Edited by indiana on Monday 10th of August 2015 09:50:33 AM

Spectator · All-time great

Nice work by Mr Milton.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

For the record, with today's rankings:

FQR: (q3) Josh Milton WR 331 defeated (q6) Hugo Nys (FRA) WR 447 by 6 -2 7-6(5) smile

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

L32: (7) Thiemo de Bakker (NED) WR 144 (CH = 40 in July 2010) vs (Q) Josh Milton WR 331 bleh

BradMarx90 · County player

Tough draw, but I would say it could have been worse. Josh is on decent form and if he gets off the blocks quick enough with an early break, perhaps, he could spring an upset here.