Alex can count himself unlucky as Niemeyer went on to win the tournament. It was a shame that he wasn't able to build on his excellent start in set 1. When Alex beat the Canadian in 2003, he caused him problems with his swinging serve and accurate volleying on the grass courts of Surbiton. However, on slow outdoor hard courts Alex's serve would have become easier to read as the match went on and Niemeyer would have been able to get into the rallies more.
Apparently Alex has been working on getting more variety on his serve, he'll need this in order to have regular success on slow surfaces as Alex is best when the points are kept relatively short, it's not really to his advantage to get drawn into long baseline rallies.
This has been a great week for Alex, his most successful week in an outdoor hard tournament since the 2004 US Open