Qualifiers placed, so the revised draw (other than George) looks like this (with today's rankings):
L32: (1) Cameron Norrie WR 79 (= CH) vs Tatsuma Ito (JPN) WR 164 (CH = 60 in October 2012)
L32: Darian King (BAR) WR 168 (CH = 106 in May last year) vs (SE) Dan Evans WR 530 (CH = 41 in March last year)
L32: Liam Broady WR 167 (CH = 154 in April) vs (WC) Alex Ward WR 327 (CH = 242 in June 2016)
L32: (Q) Tobias Kamke (GER) WR 228 (CH = 64 in January 2011) vs (WC) Jay Clarke WR 220 (CH = 219 last December)
L32: (WC) James Ward WR 403 (CH = 89 in July 2015) vs (Q) Tobias Simon (GER) WR 443 (CH = 415 in February)
Liam currently leads Alex by 3-1* in the decider.
Id like to think we stand a chance of 5 through from that lot, but reality suggests it may only be 4. My biggest worry would be Jay fro that list as Kamke's eye will be in on grass, not so worried about James as I think he knows his way around on grass. Let's see.
Gutted for Liam, he needs a good run soon on the grass as his commitment to the red stuff did not pay off. He probably would have picked up more points heading through the Asian hard court swing again and skipping the clay but got to give him credit for trying to push his career forward. Hopefully he can get it going next week and start building some momentum.
Trying to work out if there was a technical problem or if someone from the ATP forgot to pay the bill. At one point it was showing a message saying all ATP videos had been deleted PERMANENTLY.
Alex's first win since a USA futures QF in December followed on from two USA futures titles. Clearly had his injury issues since and just had 4 previous challenger outings this year, all lost.
Just saw the last couple of games but Alex was striking the ball very well and powerfully at times.