Week 38 - Challenger ($75,000) - Columbus - OH, USA (hard)

Spectator · All-time great

Week 38 - Challenger ($75,000) - Columbus - OH, USA (hard)

FriendofLouieG · Lower Club Player

Alex is in line for a special exempt for Tiburon Challenger...

Spaced · Lower Club Player

SF: (3) Luke Bambridge & David O'Hare (IRL) CR 293 (148+145) defeated (2) Brydan Klein & Joe Salisbury CR 299 (178+121) 6-3 6-4

-- Edited by Spaced on Saturday 23rd of September 2017 04:15:24 PM

Spot · Improver

...and Alex demolishes Novikov by 1 & 3 biggrin biggrin

-- Edited by Spot on Saturday 23rd of September 2017 05:22:49 PM

paulisi · Tennis legend

Easy win- Novikov way of his best.

Great to see Alex playing well again.

steven · Tennis legend

Unbelievable! I was sitting there about to press send on the tweet, almost unable to believe the scoreline! I know Novikov didn't play his best but what a crushing performance by Alex to make his first Challenger final!

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Fabulous stuff. I was thinking of flying over to watch the final but given my jinxing abilities whenever I watch Alex play live, I thought better of it wink

It is great to see him do so well though. When Alex is playing well, he is a very talented player.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

steven wrote:
Unbelievable! I was sitting there about to press send on the tweet, almost unable to believe the scoreline! I know Novikov didn't play his best but what a crushing performance by Alex to make his first Challenger final!

I had just checked twitter and found your "Alex has just started" tweet and went looking for the live stream. When I couldn't find it, I wondered what had happened. Over in a flash, as they say and fortunately with the right result.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Alex back up to just outside the Top 400 on the back of this result. Dare we dream of one more win ? Hell yes. Go Alex.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

So looking at the rankings of the players remaining in the tournament, we have.

Alex Ward WR 566 (Final)

Frank Dancevic WR 395 (SF)
Ante Pavic WR 415 (SF)

Edit

I should add that they comprise of 2 PRs and an Alt.

-- Edited by Bob in Spain on Saturday 23rd of September 2017 05:40:44 PM

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Didn't see a single ball cry

But that's great - coz it was so quick smile

Keep going, Alex !

(And same to Bambo too)

Spectator · All-time great

That's super. And does Mr Ward now have an SE for Tiburon does anyone know? In the meantime, congratulations to Mr O'Hare and Mr Bambridge. Good luck to all the GB (and IRE) players in the final.

steven · Tennis legend

By Monday, Alex will have halved his GB and world rankings since Wimbledon - up from GB 20 on day 1 on Wimbledon through GB 14 now to GB 10 on Monday and up from WR 869 on day 1 of Wimbledon to around 410 (up about 150 on the week) on Monday and that's before he has even played the final.

He is also the 20th Brit to make at least one ATP Challenger single final this century - so far, 10 of those 20 have won at least one Challenger singles title (and both of those figures work whether you consider the 21st century to have started at the beginning or end of 2000

)

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Spectator wrote:
That's super. And does Mr Ward now have an SE for Tiburon does anyone know? In the meantime, congratulations to Mr O'Hare and Mr Bambridge. Good luck to all the GB (and IRE) players in the final.

I have my suspicions that the SF place was enough to get him the SE for next week as qualies in Tiburon have started today. Today's win is just another bonus in so many ways.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Let's make all of this official.

SF: (PR) Alex Ward WR 566 beat (7) Denis Novikov WR 225 (CH 119 Aug 2016) 6-1 6-3 smile

Final: (PR) Alex Ward WR 566 v (Alt) Ante Pavic WR 425 (CH 132 Oct 2014)