Bloomfield v Prpic: Their head-to-head record stands at 1-1, Prpic won 4-6, 7-5, 6-4 at the Nottingham hard court challenger in April 2005 and Bloomfield won their last meeting on indoor hard in the Sunderland Challenger quarters, 7-6[6], 6-1. Prpic is ranked slightly higher at 240. His 2006 highlights to date have been reaching challenger quarters in Sarajevo and Cardiff and reaching the final of GB F6. His record against Brits has been onimously good, with wins over Irwin, Bains, Baker and Smith and just 1 loss [to Delgado]. His strengths are a big serve and a decent forehand.
Parmar v Tsonga: The 20 year old Frenchman has been making up for lost time this year. A former top 10 junior, Tsonga was close to breaking the top 100 in early 2005 before an injury kept him out for several months and saw his ranking plummet. He's currently ranked 315 but in March he won 3 straight 15K futures titles. He's qualified for this challenger and was on fire in rd1 beating 7th seed Cakl, 6-0, 6-2. His game is based around power play - a massive serve and heavy groundstrokes off both sides.
Look likes boggos ready to make that step to reach the top 100 , very consistent results this year!! not only that hes also doin very well in challengers outside the UK which is encouraging!
Dorsch is a 24 year old from Germany. He's ranked 250, and reached a career high of 242 earlier this month. He won a 10K futures title on hard courts in March but before this tournament he hadn't won a challenger main draw match. He lost in rd1 in Florianapolis, Talahasee and Salinas. He was lucky to get a Spanish wc in rd1 here but beating Peya in straights today was impressive. Still I think that Boggo should win this one and reach his first challenger semi on outdoor hard since August 2004.
Dorsch (aged 25) is currently ranked 250 in the entry sytem, had his highest career ranking of 242 a few weeks ago, hes won a futures event in U.S.A and reached some double semi-finals. Doesnt seem like he should be too mcuh of a struggle for boggo - saying that its these type of unknown quantities you have to look out for! heres hoping for boggo to make semis - would get him some good ranking points and close to top 130
With apologies to GC77, here's my stab at Alex's competitors this week. I have him standing at 136, with Thiago Alves breathing down his neck from Bogota.
Running Start of week Running SoFar 18th Def 19th
Rank Points Result Result
126 126 Gabashvili, Teimuraz 335 349 15-out 1 127 127 Lapentti, Nicolas 332 332 out 5 128 128 Llodra, Michael 331 331 out 6 129 129 Roitman, Sergio 328 328 1-out 1 130 130 Beck, Karol 321 321 out 0 0 131 132 Dancevic, Frank 320 320 1-out 4 4 132 131 Saulnier, Cyril 320 320 out 5 5 133 133 Gremelmayr, Denis 319 319 out 1 1 134 136 Del Potro, Juan Martin 311 314 7A 4 4 135 135 Mazarakis, Vasilis 314 314 1-out 1 1 136 140 Bogdanovic, Alex 302 313 12L 1 1 137 138 Alves, Thiago 305 307 7A 5 4 138 137 Ascione, Thierry 306 306 out 3 1 139 139 Kubot, Lukasz 304 304 5D 4 5 4 140 134 Luczak, Peter 318 299 out 1 20 1 141 141 Bogomolov, Alex 292 292 out 1 1 142 142 Dupuis, Anthony 292 292 out 5 5 143 143 Pless, Kristian 292 292 out 5 4 144 148 Faurel, Jean-Christophe279 290 12B 1 1 145 144 Lisnard, Jean-Rene 287 287 out 5 5 146 146 Burgsmuller, Lars 284 284 out 5 5 147 145 Mello, Ricardo 287 279 7A 5 15 5 148 149 Haehnel, Jerome 275 277 5B 3 2 149 150 Cipolla, Flavio 275 275 out 5 5 150 152 Junqueira, Diego 274 274 1-out 1 1 151 154 Fleishman, Zack 267 273 7A 1 1 152 147 Bastl, George 279 268 1-out 1 12 1 153 155 De Voest, Rik 264 266 5M 3 1 154 160 Devilder, Nicolas 252 263 12B 1 1 155 156 Elseneer, Gilles 261 261 1-out 1 1 156 163 Sela, Dudi 246 257 12M 1 1 157 158 Bozoljac, Ilija 255 255 1-out 1 1 158 151 Cakl, Tomas 274 255 1-out 1 20 1 159 157 Tuksar, Sasa 255 255 1-out 1 1 160 159 Korolev, Evgueni 254 254 out 1 1 161 161 Canas, Guillermo 250 250 out 0 0 162 153 Kollerer, Daniel 270 249 out 1 22 1 163 162 Philippoussis, Mark 248 248 out 0 0 164 164 Navarro-Pastor, Ivan 244 244 out 1 1 165 165 Sanchez, David 242 242 out 0 0 166 166 Aldi, Francesco 241 232 1-out 4 12 3
Barcelona : 5, 15, 25, 75, 135, 210, 300 (q:5) Casablanca: 5, 15, 40, 75, 120, 175 (q:5) c Lanzarote: 1, 5, 12, 22, 35, 50 (q: 2) L Bergamo 1, 5, 12, 22, 35, 50 (q: 2) B Bogota: 1, 7, 16, 31, 49, 70 (q 3) A Dharwad 1, 5, 12, 22, 35, 50 (q: 2) D Mexico 1, 5, 12, 22, 35, 50 (q: 2) M
possibly, although I skived off way to much work to put this one together, and I doubt if I'd be lucky enough to get Indiana, Madelaine, Imoen and the rest to check my numbers.
shame to see Canas and Philliposis down there below Alex though.....
An unfortunate result for Al, I think he went into the match as a very strong favourite. Is there some kind of match report availalble? It would be interesting to know what kind of match it was, whether Al underperformed or was just outplayed by someone on fantastic form. We also expected Al to beat Niemeyer in the Valencia Challenger, lets hope he doesn't develop that Henmanesque trait of not being able to beat an average player after beating someone really good!
I'm still optimisitc about Al, despite having been on of his detractors last year. Al has played only 7 tournaments in the first 4 months of the year, but has won 2 of them and reached QFs in 3 others. Starting at Surbiton, he can play 7 grass court events in succession, I am sure he'll get get WCs for Queens, Nottingham and Wimbledon. He'll never get a better opportunity to break into the top 100, lets hope he can stay fit!
Dorsch lost in the semis, 6-4, 6-4 to the eventual winner Prpic.
Unfortunately there wasn't a match report available for Boggo-Dorsch. Maybe Alex was struggling from the leg injury he's been carrying since Cardiff, after 2 weeks of solid competing it must have become quite painful and affected his movement and on outdoor hard he wouldn't have been able to get as many cheap points on serve as he does indoors.
I agree, this is Alex's best chance yet to break the top 100, it's just a real shame that when on the best form of his life - injury seems to be striking. I hope he's able to shake it off ahead of RG qualies where he'll be seeded. Having a week off this week should help.