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UltimateSlabbaFan wrote: imoen wrote: Thanks David/Peter. You must have contacts with pretty much everyone in the tennis world by now! Have accumulated them mostly via chance ! If Slabba gets to the final this week, I'll write a match report and submit it to the LTA. I'd do one for Morgan Phillips' triumph but as I don't have any player quotes or info on the match, I don't think they'd accept it Cannot believe that there has been nothing on the LTA site re Morgans win !!!!

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Me neither, see for example http://members3.boardhost.com/rusedski/msg/1148512382.html, but as you'll see from that thread, webman/MJD (depending on what board you meet him on) has someone's written to the LTA about it copying in Roger Draper and got a reply from the man himself within a few minutes.

My personal opinion is that if you're going to slate your players when they don't put any effort in (and fair enough), you should also shout it from the rooftops when they do put the effort in and score a real success (I don't mean just one shock result in a single match) and you should do it without showing any favouritism.

I think that would motivate the players more and give the fans a more balanced view of things - those fans who don't already get a more balanced view by coming here, to the GRMB or BTZ, I mean!

Intriguingly, although Mardy Fish's official website claims that he has the last wildcard for Queens, the Queens organisers have said that they haven't chosen the wildcards yet and are quite puzzled at this.

I really don't understand this.  Normally over here the wild cards go to Donald Young and other young American players or Americans needing a boost or something.  I have no idea why wild cards are being offered over there to fish when you only have three events.....it is strange, we have tons and yet how many wild cards have we given out to Brits?  Did Greg get spoilt by American events in the Summer of 2004 when he was coming back after being found out to be clean?  Did Andy get a wild card to the US Open last year?  I think there is far more interest over there in a young English lad playing at Queens than Fish.  I really can't understand the reasons.  I understand Flip alittle, former finalist etc who is still a big name, but not Fish.

I'm beginning to regret the fact that Philippousis ever reached the Wimby final. Why couldn't Grosjean have beaten him that year and then we wouldn't have had all this nonsense.

It's getting worse each year !

You must be quite gutted steven, I hope that you get to see Boggo and Baker/Bloomfield/Lee [provided that Queens do actually give the remaining two to brits which is by no means a certainty.] Hopefully there will be a few british qualifiers aswell, normally one manages to get through.


By the way, there's several posts on this fiasco in the ATP Queens thread in Latest Andy Murray news.

There may be some methof to their madness: Alex is currently ranked 136, currently the last direct entry is Yen Hsun Lu ranked 123.    With a few withdrawals, Alex could get direct entry, and save a wildcard for another Brit.

Edit:  No, I dont think that theory is correct - om the MTF forum, Yen Hsun Lu's is down as having a ranking of 98 on the entry list.  On the Queens website it is 123. He must have failed to defend some points....

-- Edited by stevemcqueen at 10:05, 2006-06-01

slabba fan, can you phone up that queens guy and ask them why they awarded a wc to lopez, who clearly could have made the cut if he had bothered to sign in, so he cant care that much bout playing there.

Count Zero wrote:

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slabba fan, can you phone up that queens guy and ask them why they awarded a wc to lopez, who clearly could have made the cut if he had bothered to sign in, so he cant care that much bout playing there.

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I would do but I don't particularly like that Queens guy, I phoned him for info a week ago asking about the wildcards. He said that they hadn't been decided upon and so I asked if it was ok to phone back the next week to find out who they were and he said no I couldn't.

It's such a ridiculous decision, Lopez should be punished for his laziness in not remembering to sign-in on time not rewarded !!! Queens don't seem to realise that wcs are not for handing out to players who've forgotten to enter in time, they're for encouraging home-grown talent to give them the opportunity to compete against the world's best. All other countries utilise this, Queens is the only stupid tournament that doesn't and typically it has to be a British one.

As mjd said, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Fish and Lopez had slipped the organisers some cash in return for a wc.