Week 9 - Portugal F2 ($10,000) - Faro - Hard

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

RE: Week 9 - Portugal F2 ($10,000) - Faro - Hard

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Scott now *1-4 down.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Matt Chadwick is here and has just won.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Scott lost 6-1 in the 3rd

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Jonny off to a flier and is already *3-0 up with a double break.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Cruises to the 1st set 6-0

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Men against boys stuff here as Jonny leads 4-0* in the 2nd

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Thank Gawd for Jonny - hope he closes it out, no problem.

Coz it looks a bit of a mare everywhere else.

Harry Skinner lost in three sets, as did Marco, and Nikki lost in two.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Jonny seals a straight forward double bagel win.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

2nd victory of the day for Robbie Ridout as he wins 6-4 7-5

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

That's great !

Robbie's opponent is 27 and used to be WR 333.

I expect he was pretty useful ....

Did you see Robbie play at all?

I have a gut feel that he's going to do quite well, although I have nothing of substance to base it on.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Matt Chadwick lost his second match of the day, 6-1 6-2

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

My colleague will be putting several match reports up during the next hour - including matches from Harry Meehan, Scott Clayton, Jonny O'Mara and Robbie Ridout. And watch out for a special Minibusgate report.

Bob in Portugal · Social player

Harry Meehan

Before I start a write up of Harry's match today, let's begin by clearing up a mystery from last week. As many will remember, Harry was a set up and heading into a 2nd set TB when he retired at 6-4 6-6. Harry has been suffering a viral infection for about 10 days and was in a bad way when he played last week. He battled his way through the 1st set, but when someone told him at 5-5 in the 2nd that he would have to play again later in the day, he already knew he wasn't fit to do that. He played 2 more games, and thinking he had lost the set 7-5, he chose that moment to retire, only later realising that that he was into a TB that would have given him victory. But even had he won that TB and with it the match, he would have withdrawn from the next round anyway because of his illness.

First up today in strong wind, he took found it very difficult to get going in the early stages. The wind was blowing the furniture everywhere and all the players have been saying that the balls are very slow, making timing tricky. His talented young Spanish opponent handed Harry a break in the opening game with a couple of DFs, but Harry returned the favour in the next game and very quickly found himself *1-4 down. He fought hard to rescue the set but eventually succumbed 6-4. In the 2nd set, he was in no mood to battle things out from the baseline given his ongoing health problem (he is still on medication) and made the decision to shorten the points and attack the net whenever possible. When he got his racket to the ball, he made some excellent volleys but the young Spaniard was very solid on his ground strokes off both wings. As Harry commented afterwards, his opponent "liked a target" and hit several emphatic passing shots in running out a 6-4 6-2 winner.

It does appear that Harry is determined to give his career a real go though. He said to me afterwards that with his type of game, even if he goes through two or three months of qualies without success, when his game actually clicks, he could easily race back up the rankings. From what I saw today, I am inclined to agree.

Stick at it Harry. The results will come.

Bob in Portugal · Social player

Scott Clayton

This was the one that got away. From what I have seen over the last two days, Scott is a sweet timer of the ball, particularly off the backhand wing. But when the conditions are difficult, timing is the first thing to go. Scott really struggled with the wind in the first four games and soon found himself 0-4 down. And although his game started to come together, a first set fight back was not quite enough and he lost that set 6-3.

Breaking in the 1st game of the 2nd set however gave him confidence and he totally outplayed is solid but unspectacular opponent over the next few games, enabling him to hand out a bagel and level the match up at 1 set all.

The first few games of the 3rd proved the key to this match. Scott had 15-40 on his opponents serve in the opening game, but to be fair, the Spaniard found two big first serves and then went on to hold. Scott himself had to hold from 0-30 in the next game but he did so with 4 points in a row. In the 3rd game of the set Scott had several more chances in a game of multiple deuces, but on each occasion, tried to force a bit too much with his forehand going long when hitting down wind. He berated himself on a more than one occasion for not allowing for the wind and in the end the Spaniard held on for 2-1*. Those missed opportunties seemed to affect Scott and from there on, the Spanish opponent rather ran away with the match to win 6-1 in the decider.

This was a match that Scott could have and probably should have won. He will know that better than anyone. But I have seen enough over the last two days to suggest to me that he has the game to move up the rankings and add himself to my list of Top 500 players over the course of this season.