There has been a regular supply of tournaments in Istanbul during the autumn, and this week we are back up to a Grade 3. There was success in qualifying for 2 out of 3 Brits, but Joel Pierleoni narrowly missed out. The last time a Brit was paired with Bjorn Borg's son Will Nolan got the better of him in a Grade 2 (since then Leo has been given a number of wildcards for qualifying for M15 events in Sharm el Sheikh, with no joy, though he did take 5 games off former top tenner Ernests Gulbis at a Challenger earlier in the year)- it's Derrick Chen's turn to face him tomorrow.
A good day for Derrick progressing easily to the quarter-finals and also reaching the doubles semis. However his next match is against the top seed, whose last 3 tournaments have been a Grade 1 semi, Grade 2 win and Grade 3 finalist
R2
Derrick Chen d. (LL) Erik Kovacs (CAN) 6-2 6-1
(8) Mark Lajal (EST) d. (Q) Mattias Southcombe 6-2 6-4
