Bob in Spain wrote:

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Not to be as Billy goes down in 3 sets.

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For the record:

L32:  David Pichler (AUT) WR 760 defeated Billy Harris WR 679 by 3-6 6-4 6-1 

What went wrong, Bob?

Well that was a real mixed day. Mostly on the negative side unfortunately.

Billy showed in the first set and a half why I still believe he has the ability to be a lot higher in the rankings. His opponent was top 400 less than a year ago and yet Billy was winning comfortably. This wasn't the case of someone shooting from the hip and having purple patch. Billy was playing with controlled aggression, comfortably moving his opponent around the court and he fully deserved to lead 6-3 3-1. But from then on it all turned sour and he lost 11 of the next 13 games. It was uncomfortable to watch in many ways. It would be easy to criticize Billy and I could point out several occasions where failings were obvious. And they weren't just technical. But with the vibe I had all day and the brief conversations I had with Billy both before and after the match, it was clear that the capitulation was just the symptom of deeper off court issues. Out of respect for Billy, I won't go into them, other than to say that at this moment in time, he is much more in need of support and (dare I say it) guidance, than he is of criticism.

As for Dan, this is the first time I had seen him play whilst under the GB flag, although I did see him play about 3 years ago when he was still an "Aussie". I have to say, I was very impressed. His stature doesn't allow him to have the potent serve that will bring cheap points, but his ground strokes were very impressive, particularly on the forehand side. The match was closer than the scoreline suggested but his much higher ranked opponent managed to come up with the goods at the right time. However it was a high quality match in difficult conditions. Light was fading fast by the end and the floodlights were not the brightest.

I had the pleasure of sitting next to and talking to a coaching legend throughout Dan's match. Sñr William 'Pato' Alvárez was working with Dan's opponent despite his 84 years of age. For those who haven't heard of him, he spent many years working at the Sanchez Casal Academy where he spent three of those years working with a young lad by the name of Andy Murray. He did tell me that he had a whole host of stories about what a young Andy got up to in his time in Barcelona, but he was far too much of a gentleman to pass any of those stories along. I get the feeling I missed out on some serious scoops there. Sorry everyone.

Bob in Spain wrote:

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[...] Sñr William 'Pato' Alvárez [...]

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Sorry, Bob, but I think you'll find it's Álvarez (& the abbreviation of Señor is "Sr").    No juicy stories here, but quite an interesting insight into the methods of the Sánchez-Casal Academy.

Very sorry to hear that Billy's having to contend with off-court trials & tribulations.  I do hope he manages to put them behind him before too long.

"In the title, it is clearly Alvárez and so I went with their spelling. Having read more of the article now, it seems that I shouldn't trust their grammar as later in the piece, they use Álvarez and on another occasion, Alvarez with no accent at all."

Sums up my whole approach to accents fullstop

Just random little sprinklings of fairy dust ......

And I DO know that they're supposed to be guides to pronunciation but when you're in France and the guy in the shop recommends the 'Petit Campet' which he pronounces 'Campette' and you say, 'interesting, why do you say Campette' and he says 'yeah, I know, funny, isn't it - up north they'll say Campet (com-pay) but round here it's campette, that's just how it is' - well, then you give up a bit with official guides to pronunciation anyway and just go with the flow......

Coup Droit wrote:

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Just random little sprinklings of fairy dust ......

And I DO know that they're supposed to be guides to pronunciation [...]

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Not in Spanish & Portuguese they're not.  They're more than mere guides:  they tell you where to put the stress (& often, in Portuguese, when to nasalise the sound) when the prounciation of a word does not obey either of the two basic rules (next-to-last syllable if the word ends in a vowel, an "s" or an "n" or final syllable if it ends in a consonant other than an "s" or an "n").  Then there's the tilde, which tells you whether an "n" is pronounced "ny".

I imagine SC touring Europe telling the locals that they are mispronouncing words