Alex Slabinsky is the 7th seed in the main draw and he faces Japanese qualifier Tetsuhiro Yamamoto in rd1.
I'm not sure whether this tournament has been moved outdoors or whether it's still being held indoors.
Yamamoto has the advantage of having already won 3 matches on the surface and he looked impressive in qualifying but all his opponents were unranked. Alex is the big favourite for this match being ranked over 600 places higher [Yamamoto is ranked 1256]. If Alex wins his ranking will move into the world's top 600 for the first time in his career. Alex has a great chance to reach the semis here as the seed in his section [Aussie Sadik Kadir] had to retire in rd1 due to illness and they were seeded to play in the quarters. None of Alex's potential opponents are ranked in the top 700.
Alex lost in rd1 of the doubles with Sadik Kadir 4-6, 6-2, 4-6, a defeat which wasn't helped by Kadir not feeling well.
-- Edited by UltimateSlabbaFan at 08:46, 2006-04-19
Rd1: A Slabinsky [GB][7] bt T Yamamoto [Jap][q] 6-3, 6-3
Alex will now be in the top 600 when his points from this tournament are added on, on May 1st. Alex was pleased with the result, he said that he played well and broke Yamamoto early in both sets so it sounds like a comfortable victory. Alex will play his rd2 match on Thursday, not sure yet who he'll play.
Alex said that Kadir was ok when they played the doubles rd1 match, they just played badly apparently. He was disappointed that they hadn't taken their chances, they were 4-2 up in the 3rd but lost the next 4 games.
Rd2: Slabba lost to Japan's Yaoki Ishii, don't know the score.
Although Ishii is ranked 759 it's not particularly a surprise result. He was ranked close to the top 200 back in 2000 and his ranking dropped due to injury. He looks to be finding his form again as in Japan F1 last week he reached the semis losing only to the top seed in 3 sets. I wouldn't be surprised if he wins this week, in which case Slabba would be very unlucky as he lost to the eventual winner [Iwabuchi] last week
A shame he wasn't able to build on the momentum from set 2. I suspect that he would have had chances at the start of set 3 and will probably be annoyed with himself for missing those. It's a shame as if he'd won this match he would have had a great chance of reaching the semis.
On to Japan F3 where he'll probably be 7th seed again
