And Barnaby lived up to his 'new' ranking, putting out the top seed.
Dominic only fell a whisker short, too, against the top seed.
QF
(1) Ye Cong Mo (CHN) def. Dominic West 6-3 5-7 6-4
(8) Barnaby Smith def. (2) Tao Mu (CHN) 7-5 6-4
Barnaby next plays the French boy who was the favourite and top seed in the U16 nationals in France in August but who got pipped at the post by Jaimee.
Someone may have explained this earlier, but Barnaby Smith's results made me look up his history. He has a very sporadic playing pattern - nothing between October and March, a few tournaments in March, a few in late April/early May, then nothing until his current fine August/September run. Injuries? School? Combination?
I believe that he is based in Spain, Spec, at the Sanchez-Casal academy.
Not that that would have an obvious (to me) impact on his playing schedule but it might just explain a different approach.
Spot on. He does train in Spain.
When I went to the DC final in November last year in Belgium, I was standing in the queue waiting to go in and got talking to a couple next to me. Turns out that they were Barnaby's parents. The told me he had moved to Spain and was starting to be play futures events.
