I've looked up the young French player that Josh Sapwell is playing, Maxime Petel, age 18 (had never heard of him before), ranked 1016

Nothing much on his Pro results sheet - made the semis of a French 10k last year and then had a pretty skinny stint in Tunisia, not too much that looks impressive.

And his domestic ranking is -15, which is good enough, but seems to have stagnated. He won one big money tournament this year, got knocked out in R2 of another, and was 3-2 in his team matches. Has managed to beat lower ranked players, but with tight scores. His best result is beating Puget WR 329 in a team match in November, which on paper looks great but depends a bit on the dynamics of the team match in question.

Overall, though, I think Sapwell has an excellent chance.

Have spoken to Phil, apparently a good balcony so it should be fine.

Matches involving Brits only:

R1:  (1) Luke Bambridge & Richard Gabb CR 653 (331+322) vs Romain Bauvy & Alexandre Sidorenko (FRA/FRA) CR 1022 (802+220)

R1:  (3) Dave Rice & Dan Smethurst CR 753 (383+370) vs Daniel Appelgren & Daniel Windahl (SWE/SWE) CR 2299 (1492+807)

R1:  (WC) Charles Broom & Ryan Storrie UNR vs Joachim Bjerke & Fred Simonson (NOR/SWE) UNR (0+556)
R1:  (WC) Luke Simone & Marcus Walters UNR vs (4) Lloyd Glasspool & Josh Ward-Hibbert CR 859 (391+468)

R1:  (WC) Jay Clarke & Luke Oakley UNR vs James Marsalek & Neil Pauffley CR 1777 (689+1098)

Well, I was right, but only by an absolute whisker !

Josh Sapwell def. Max Petel 12-10 in the third-set tie-break !!!!

And Josh WH came through nicely, in three sets, v the top Q seed, which is also, of course, makes me smile.....

Q Round 3

Joshua WARD-HIBBERT (GBR) 6-2 3-6 6-3 Fred SIMONSSON (SWE) [1] WR 655
Yannick MADEN (GER) [2] 6-3 6-1 Baptiste CREPATTE (FRA) [12]
Joshua SAPWELL (GBR) 7-6(6) 5-7 7-6(10) Maxime PETEL (FRA) [15] WR 1020
Raymond SARMIENTO (USA) [4] 6-0 6-0 Daniel BENNETT (GBR)
Andrea VAVASSORI (ITA) [14] 6-1 7-5 Jonathan MRIDHA (SWE) [5]
Daniel APPELGREN (SWE) [6] 6-1 3-6 7-5 Daniel WINDAHL (SWE) [11]
Luke OAKLEY (GBR) 6-2 4-6 6-4 Joshua PARIS (GBR)  WR 1169
Milos SEKULIC (SWE) [9] 7-6(5) 6-2 Tyler HOCHWALT (USA) [8]

 

After a 4 hour and 5 minute marathon.... I got the win 7-6(6) 5-7 7-6(10) played really well throughout. Was very difficult at times but managed to pull through. Saved a fair few match points and he did also but thankfully came through it in the end first round tomorrow against a qualifier. Have a good evening

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Monday 8th of February 2016 06:21:41 PM

Sounds like Josh Sapwell's win was a bit of a marathon. Here is part of his tweet.

After a 4 hour and 5 minute marathon.... I got the win 7-6(6) 5-7 7-6(10) played really well throughout.

Good job they weren't playing best of 5 sets

Edit

That's cheating CD.  Editing Josh's comment into an earlier post just to beat me to the punchline

-- Edited by Bob in Spain on Monday 8th of February 2016 06:23:08 PM

theemptyvessel wrote:

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Liam not in the main draw so taking a break ahead of Shrewsbury. Might suggest he uses his time productively and goes shoe shopping

-- Edited by theemptyvessel on Monday 8th of February 2016 06:31:25 PM

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What ?  Two colours not enough for you

Coup Droit wrote:

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Bob in Spain wrote:

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Sounds like Josh Sapwell's win was a bit of a marathon. Here is part of his tweet.

After a 4 hour and 5 minute marathon.... I got the win 7-6(6) 5-7 7-6(10) played really well throughout.

Good job they weren't playing best of 5 sets

Edit

That's cheating CD.  Editing Josh's comment into an earlier post just to beat me to the punchline

-- Edited by Bob in Spain on Monday 8th of February 2016 06:23:08 PM

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Sorry, guv ! We did it at the same time, honest - yours wasn't there when I went back to add it - cross me heart and hope to die

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LOL  You really crack me up sometimes