From what little I've seen in these Challengers, it's an interesting study. Mr Fritz seems very calm, consistent, and has an often lethal serve and an elegance to his game. Mr Tiafoe seems up and down - when he's good, he's potentially unplayable. And then suddenly he's not very good at all. And then he's good again. He also sometimes has the best Alex Bogdanovic memorial trudge I've seen in years. (For those who came in the post-AB era, Mr Bogdanovic, still one of my favourite players and someone who I thought possessed a very elegant game and was great fun to watch, would sometimes trudge between points as if he were a burdened soul walking out of an Underground station after a hard day's work with the weight of the world on his shoulders. All right, I exaggerate somewhat, but it was a trudge)

With respect to this match, I could be wrong, as I'm very inexpert, but it did appear that Mr Evans' consistent use of the sliced back hand gave his opponent a clear target and strategy.

I can't remember ever seeing a non-GB tournament at Challenger level or higher where every doubles match at QF level involved, as you note, CD, at least one GB player. That is great stuff.

Not easy match-ups, but I'd be hopeful in various cases: so to consolidate and supplement what SC has put in various places (in addition to the post above):

QF: David O'Hare (IRL) & Joe Salisbury CR 491 (239+252) v (3) Dean O'Brien and Ruan Roelofse (RSA/RSA) CR 249 on the draw, 251 this week (123+128)
QF: Josh Milton & John-Patrick Smith (AUS) CR 1074 (799+275) v (WC) Tim Kopinski and Dennis Nevolo (USA/USA) CR 2251 (1277+974)
QF: David Rice & Marcus Willis CR 785 (318+467) v (2) Johan Brunstrom and Frederik Nielsen (SWE/DEN) CR 241 on the draw, 225 this week (115+110)

On a non-GB note, as Brunstrom isn't a singles player, I'm rather hoping that Mr Nielsen may be gearing himself up - the two of them having just about reached the point where lower-level ATP tournaments are within reach - of finally making a bid for a good, solid Tour-level doubles year in a stable pairing ... while playing singles at every opportunity. He could probably qualify in singles at a reasonable number of low-level ATPs, too. Be lovely to see him get back that doubles ranking - and have some good singles as well.

-- Edited by Spectator on Thursday 19th of November 2015 07:03:09 AM

He was overdoing it with the underspin yesterday. His shot-making in general was below par (noted in the match commentary) and Fritz was able to use his power to overwhelm Evans at times. Having said that, Evans played reasonably well during the second set, turned the momentum of the match right round and had Fritz looking miserable with a string of easy errors. Had Evans then managed to stay strong at the start of the third, my feeling is that he would have taken the match as Fritz's morale would have stayed down with  the inevitably higher error count that comes from that. The biggest problem Evans had yesterday imo wasn't Fritz. It was his lack of a first serve.

Stircrazy wrote:

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As feared:

QF:  (1) Austin Krajicek & Nicholas Monroe (USA/USA) CR 147 (88+59) vs (Q) Dan Smethurst & Darren Walsh CR 575 (386+187) 

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Krajicek, the second seed in the singles, has just lost in three sets to the qualifier, Clay Thompson.  $64,000 question:  will that spur him on in the doubles or play on his mind & distract him?    it's the latter.