Will take that for starters. Surely gentle prep for much more serious FQRs.
It led me to to check on just what is the current rankings situation with the Chinese men. Answer = surprisingly poor.
These two are their #8 (age 25) and #9 (age 21) behind 7 players in the top 500 and their #1 being WR 222 ( that's lower than that tennis superpower GB's top 10 average of 220.4 ).
L32: Kyle Edmund WR 32 vs (WC) Zhizhen Zhang (CHN) WR 224
L32: (PR) Andy Murray WR 413 vs (8) Matteo Berrettini (ITA) WR 13 (=CH)
Dominic Thiem is top seed.
Q spots are against a local WC Zhe Li, Marco Cecchinato, (4) Karen Khachanov or Cristian Garin. If Dan & Cam qualify, and you'd hope they would, not overly terrible Q spots.
-- Edited by flamingowings on Saturday 28th of September 2019 07:51:16 AM
L32: Kyle Edmund WR 32 vs (WC) Zhizhen Zhang (CHN) WR 224
L32: (PR) Andy Murray WR 413 vs (8) Matteo Berrettini (ITA) WR 13 (=CH)
Dominic Thiem is top seed.
Q spots are against a local WC Zhe Li, Marco Cecchinato, (4) Karen Khachanov or Cristian Garin. If Dan & Cam qualify, and you'd hope they would, not overly terrible Q spots.
-- Edited by flamingowings on Saturday 28th of September 2019 07:51:16 AM
Andy not getting kind draws on this comeback.
Draw here has all 8 seeds in top 13 ranking, but at least no Djokovic as per weaker Tokyo draw.
L32: Kyle Edmund WR 32 vs (WC) Zhizhen Zhang (CHN) WR 224
L32: (PR) Andy Murray WR 413 vs (8) Matteo Berrettini (ITA) WR 13 (=CH)
Dominic Thiem is top seed.
Q spots are against a local WC Zhe Li, Marco Cecchinato, (4) Karen Khachanov or Cristian Garin. If Dan & Cam qualify, and you'd hope they would, not overly terrible Q spots.
-- Edited by flamingowings on Saturday 28th of September 2019 07:51:16 AM
Andy not getting kind draws on this comeback.
Draw here has all 8 seeds in top 13 ranking, but at least no Djokovic as per weaker Tokyo draw.
Kyle with a fortunate draw, that doesnt happen very often......
Joking aside I think although Andy has a tough draw I fancy him to win this one.
It is a nice draw for Kyle, and he should win, but (not that he would), he certainly shouldn't underestimate his opponent. He did win a challenger the other week beating some top 100 players, and last week in Zhuhai beat that Koepfer who had a good run at the US Open, and then had multiple MPs against Seppi in the next round (check out the thread on MTF for an unbelievable MP save from Seppi), before eventually losing deep in the tie break. Kyle is better than some of these players mentioned, but at the moment he is just really playing top 70/80 tennis, and Zhizhen is seemingly playing around that type of level as well at the moment, so could be closer than you'd generally think.