Imagines Basil Fawlty screaming at poor Manuel

James has had three break points, one he lost thanks to a sublime (and slightly lucky) drop shot from Guinard, one lost due to a nice backhand from James that went fractionally long, and another lost due to a rather careless backhand from James.

On serve, 2-3

Finally after multiple BPs in this set, Marzi takes one to lead *4-3

Great to see James getting some reward - both financial and in terms of points - for his excellent efforts so far this week.

He sure kept that crowd quiet 

Yes. All good !

That's James' first challenger counter for the past year. And fifth highest counter on his scorecard. Should take him up to about WR 610.

And, as said before, I think it's no coincidence that James' good run in Sweden 15k came in the middle of some decent attempts at challenger qualies (even if those ones didn't yield any direct benefit).

You've got to think that top 500 looks a good bet on that form, Bob

Really well done James, a very well earned 5 points and a chance in a challenger MD.

Great to see so many outside the top 500 doing so well recently. And while I know there has been some discussion and a certain debate in another thread about the general overall standards, as well as indeed being debatable any sort of relative fall off hasn't happened suddenly so credit to them. A bit strange that we had quite a prolonged period with not much life outside the top 500 and now quite so many have began to get good results, so that's all good. Thinking further, maybe some had to regather themselves after the LTA not only moved the goalposts, but to some closed down the ruddy pitch.

Now, being me, I have to balance it, such a pity that now so many of our highest ranked players have been underperforming.

Still good to see those who have picked up and I sense most on the forum like to see decent depth in GB rankings for various reasons.

Go, James !

-- Edited by indiana on Monday 12th of October 2015 12:25:17 PM