Great to see young Joel come through a tough 3-setter in FQR, but oh, what a draw.
In fact that whole top quarter is ridiculous. It has the top seed who was a Top 200 player less tham 2 years ago, the 7th seed who won the tournament in Tipton last week, plus 3 qualifiers, 2 WCs and a LL. The two seeds must be licking their lips.
Jay concedes the first break ot the final set on his 10th BP against in the set. Quite a few were in that last game and it seemed to have gone on a while before I followed it.
Jay loses 6-3 3-6 6-4 after what looks to have been a great effort to hang in there for 2 hours 41 minutes.
Overall points were 94-107 against him, with points played on Jay's service hugely higher from even games 128-73. Jay converted 2/3 BPs in the match against 3/16.
Interesting tweet by Lloyd:
So I get fined for being highest rank Brit at torn yet get put on worst court. Only in England you get penalised for playing on home turf.
Super from Ryan, yes quite a way to get his first ranking point
Ryan was being touted along with Jay about a year or so ago as the ( then ) juniors to watch. He's rather gone off the radar since, I assume injuries involved.
Whatever, that's the way to come back onto the radar !
Have to confess (although nobody will believe me) that I thought Ryan would win that one. My prediction was based on the fact that Billy Harris beat Geens last year in Cartagena.