Go Kyle! And here's what it meant to him

Gulbis has beaten Isner in Stockholm.

Re the ATP race, catching #8 remains barely possible mathematically ( but won't be necessary unless Thiem is overtaken by someone else ), catching #9 or 10 pretty unlikely, but if 02 goes to #11* then it's more interesting. Kyle at least is keeping himself well in the running for an alternates place.

Currently in the race :

8. Thiem 3535

9. Isner 3020
10. Nishikori 3000

11. Coric 2300
12. Fognini 2225
13. Edmund 2050 ( 2150 if wins Antwerp title )
14. Tsitsipas 1985 ( 2085 if wins Stockhom title )

Next week Thiem, Isner, Nishikori, Coric, Fognini and Edmund are all in Vienna. Tsitsipas is in Basel 

* Federer is playing Basel too so not sure there is currently any player to be seen as a likely 02 absentee beyond Del Potro and Nadal. Other than these two Djokovic is the only other leading race player not playing next week.

Not his best form but he kept ahead and closed it out - well done

Bob in Spain wrote:

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Just landed in Brazil and seen the result. Scoreline looks pretty comprehensive and 16 aces to boot.

As for the O2 situation, its always fun to analyze the permutations but unless there are 3 or 4 drop outs, I don't give Kyle a cat in hell's chance of getting in. Not such a bad thing though. Some extra rest after a long and illness interrupted season would probably be a good thing. As we all know, he has big points to defend at the start of next season.

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Yes, realistically as far as Kyle is concerned it almost certainly needs to get to at least 3 drop outs which currently looks unlikely ( 3 and he is for now right in there at the moment with a much better chance than say Jack Sock ever looked like having last year until he went and made it at the last gasp ). 

Though as suggested before indeed no bad thing if he simply has a good end to the season after the issues he has had and then has good time to build to next season, particularly if he can nab a title.

http://videostream.dn.ua/videopage/videoPage.php?g=OTcxOTYf&c=en&i=eWl2bW9iZGlzaAff

this is a reliable site, I've always found.

I was going to put no commentary, but it's started in the 2nd set, English and US voices. so this may be the sky feed

Edmund 4-1 up in 2nd set, lost the 1st set.