Jaffa wrote:

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I hate to be a downer, although its great that he;s made a semi this week, he's only been playing futures opposition. I will watch the semi with interest.

That said, you can only beat what is in front of you and he's done that well.

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Indeed, and it was recognised as a good draw, although also that his R2 opponent Ivashka had beaten him fairly comprehensively a few weeks ago.

Winning matches, and hence playing more matches and building something has been very difficult of late for James, and he had looked well just bad in some of them ( under the cloud of his then unknown to others, coach's illness ) so this is still very good to see.

QF:  (2) James Ward WR 159 defeated Sanam Singh (IND) WR 279 by 3 & 2 

*****

SF:  Daniel Nguyen (USA) WR 237 (CH = 189 in July) vs (2) James Ward WR 159

Ratty wrote:

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Strange, I thought all the BTMB experts were agreed that Wardy needed to take the rest of the year off to get back in the winning groove 

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 It helps if you know the problems that are going on behind the scenes....

paulisi wrote:

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Ratty wrote:

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Strange, I thought all the BTMB experts were agreed that Wardy needed to take the rest of the year off to get back in the winning groove 

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 It helps if you know the problems that are going on behind the scenes....

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Indeed, no-one that I know here is claiming to be "expert", just doing that strange forum thing of venturing opinions as tennis followers.

And to many of us, James game did seem in a bit of a rut such that it appeared a break might do him some good rather than just move on week to week.

As paulisi indicates, we were clearly unaware of the sad news of his coach's cancer fight ( something James was all too aware of and carrying with him and who knows individually how just playing tennis was / is a burden, release or whatever ) which rather alters the dynamics and and some of folk's thinking.

To me it was absolutely fair enough that folk said what they thought at the time, or you end up saying zilch apart from reporting results or have multiple riders.