Japan F3

Sheddie · administrator

Japan F3

Sally · Grand Slam Champion

Main Draw

(1)Tasuku Iwami (JPN) v Hyun-Woo Nam (KOR)
Daniel Yoo (KOR) v (Q)Hiroyasu Sato (JPN)

Takahiro Terachi (JPN) v Yaoki Ishii (JPN)
(7)Jae-Sung An (KOR) v (wc)Kousuke Naruse (JPN)

(4)Woong-Sun Jun (KOR) v (wc)Kensuke Goto (JPN)
(Q)Syrym Abdukhalikov (KAZ) v (Q)Christoph Palmanshofer (AUT)

Hiu-Tung Yu (HKG) v (Q)Katsushi Fukuda (JPN)
(5)Atsuo Ogawa (JPN) v Tai-Wei Liu (TPE)

(8)Tetsuya Chaen (JPN) v (Q)Isao Miyoshi (JPN)
(Q)Hayato Furukawa (JPN) v (wc)Shinta Fujii (JPN)

Guilherme Ochiai (BRA) v (Q)Toshiharu Kato (JPN)
(3)David Martin (USA) v Sun-Yong Kim (KOR)

(6)Alexander Slabinsky (GBR) v Hiroki Kondo (JPN)
Lester Cook (USA) v (wc)Hiroshi Ohata (JPN)

Chu-Huan Yi (TPE) v Hyung-Tae Kwon (KOR)
(2)Sadik Kadir (AUS) v (Q)Kento Takeuchi (JPN)

Doubles Draw

(1)Jun/Kim v (wc)Fujisawa/Kajikawa
Kato/Yoshino v (wc)Goto/Oyama

(4)Liu/Yi v Liang/Yang
Gong/Li v (wc)Kato/Ohata

An/Yoo v Kondo/Terachi
(3)Kadir/Slabinsky v Kato/Ochiai

Kwon/Nam v Furukawa/Takeuchi
(2)Martin/Sato v Fukuda/Ito

Sheddie · administrator

Rd1 singles preview:

Alex's rd1 opponent this week is Hiroki Kondo. Alex and Kondo have already faced each other in doubles, in rd1 of Japan F1, Alex and Sadik Kadir beat the Japanese pair Kondo and Fuji in straight sets. Kondo is currently unranked, he reached a career high of 512 in August 2002 before injury struck and kept him out of action for around two years. Since his return to tournament action in December 2005, Kondo hasn't been successful, the only time he's won a main draw match was in Japan F1 when he qualified and beat an unranked American in rd1 before losing 6-0, 6-3 to 2nd seed Sadik Kadir in rd2. Alex is the 6th seed this week, if he beats Kondo he will face Chinese lucky loser Zhe Li in rd2. Li's rd1 victory was against an unranked Japanese wildcard. Alex is seeded to face his doubles partner, Sadik Kadir in the quarter-finals.

Rd1 doubles preview:

Alex and Sadik face the same opponents they beat in 3 sets in the quarters of Japan F1. That day Slabinsky/Kadir won 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 after a struggle. Kato's current doubles ranking is 1208 anf Ochai's doubles ranking is 1081. Alex has been unhappy with his doubles performances in the last couple of weeks, hopefully he and Sadik are able to combine well in this rd1 match and get off to a good start in the tournament. They are the 3rd seeds and are seeded to face David Martin [USA] and Hiroyasu Sato [Japan] in the semis.

Sheddie · administrator

As posted on Alex's official website: http://www.freewebs.com/alexslabinsky

Rd1 singles: A Slabinsky [GB][6] bt H Kondo [Jap] 7-5, 6-7[8], 6-2
Report: Kondo has a protected ranking of 519 so this was a decent victory for Alex. However, Alex is not entirely happy as he missed several chances to win the match in straight sets. Speaking after the match, Alex said "I was 5-2 up in the 2nd set but Kondo broke back and took it to a tiebreak. I was 5-3 up in the tiebreak, he attacked the net and I had an easy passing shot but he guessed right and put away the volley for a winner. He went on to win the tiebreak 8-6. In the 3rd set I finished the job." Alex is in action in rd1 of the doubles later this morning. He faces Chinese lucky loser Zhe Li in rd2 of the singles on Thursday morning.

Rd1 doubles: Slabinsky/Kadir[3] won 6-2, 6-1

Great stuff from Alex, he's the last remaining Brit in futures this week.

Sheddie · administrator

Not sure where Alex is playing next week, he may be taking a break unless he's got a wc for Bournemouth.

He's playing Edinburgh qualies that weekend unless he gets a wc.

Sheddie · administrator

Alex's got a lucky loser in rd2 so he should make the quarters. If he wins tomorrow, I reckon that he's got a really good chance of beating Kadir in the quarters who's his doubles partner, - if he does and reaches the semis that would earn him 6 points and move him up close to the top 550.

Sheddie · administrator

Is the Slabba unmasked ?

After months of fruitless searching and emailing tournament organisers I think I may have finally obtained a pic of the Slabba:

I think that the only person here who's seen Slabba in action is Robxon. Rob is this Slabba ?

Also, is anyone here fluent in Japanese ? Or, does anyone know of a free online language translation site which translates english to japanese ?

Shhh · Challenger level

UltimateSlabbaFan wrote:

if he does and reaches the semis that would earn him 6 points and move him up close to the top 550.

As its a 10k there'll only be 4pts for a semis appearance.

Robxon · Lower Club Player

No that's not Slabba. He's fair-headed, natural not dyed, or he was when I last saw him. Sorry I can't help with the Japanese translation!

kate85 · Lower Club Player

Have you tried Babel Fish? Search for Free Online Translator on google and it comes up. They do some hilarious translatios, but you get the idea.

Drew · Apr 27, 2006

David asked :

Also, is anyone here fluent in Japanese ? Or, does anyone know of a free online language translation site which translates english to japanese ?

This is a great site for free translations....incl Japanese to English etc...

http://www.worldlingo.com/en/products_services/worldlingo_translator.html

Sheddie · administrator

Alex lost 6-2, 6-3 in the singles and 6-1, 6-3 in the doubles

Can't make out those results - must have just been a really bad day.

Salmon · Tennis legend

Thats really bad.

Shhh · Challenger level

I have followed this trip of Alex with interest and I am sure the experience has been a learning one. The results though have been very disappointing with about half a dozen points picked up over 7 or 8 weeks, this despite sometimes being amongst the seeds

With the promise he showed last year, I was hoping for more for him.

Sheddie · administrator

I do agree, this trip has been very disappointing for Alex, I had expected him to have gained more points than just 7 in 4 months

I was hoping for more but you have to remember that it was his first major trip abroad playing a series of tournaments. It's quite a change getting used to competing outside Britain as you have to cope with different types of surfaces [in Britain it's just mainly indoor and outdoor acrylic], different balls, different styles of players [in Britain players tend to get into a bit of a rut competing against similar types of opponents] and different conditions.

The Australian 15K futures events were all really strong fields - equivalent to some weaker challenger events. Alex struggled in week 1 with jetlag and the intense heat but after that he adapted reasonably well. He was unlucky as he had a number of really, really tight 3 set matches against players ranked around 300 places higher and he just failed to take his chances in those matches. Even though he lost, I'm sure that Alex gained hugely from those experiences and it was promising that he can compete with and is good enough to beat top 400 and top 350 players at this point in time.

I expected Alex to really rack up the points in the Japanese 10Ks which were very weak fields - especially 2 and 3. However, I don't think he was ever particularly comfortable on the courts out there and he definately didn't produce his best tennis in weeks 2 and 3.

He's now heading back to Britain now [I think], I know he's playing Edinburgh qualies but I'm not sure whether or not he's playing Bournemouth qualies or just heading back home for a week's break.