Members Login
Username 
 
Password 
    Remember Me  
Post Info TOPIC: GB F7


Admin:Moderator + Tennis Legend

Status: Offline
Posts: 12091
Date:
RE: GB F7



Count Zero wrote:

i think this set of results justifies why we dont want a clay challenger!
the country really needs to either push clay much more often and from younger or just say sod it and have a whole bunch more grass events,
i'd go for option 2, how often would we see a non-german, european futures on the grass.




Interesting point. But surely our young players need to be able to play well on clay? There are SO many clay tournaments and so few grass ones; it is not much use producing grass specialists these days. All that happens is they get a wild card at Wimbedon, raise our hopes by doing reasonably well there, then fade away. . .

Naming no names of course.

__________________


Grand Slam Champion

Status: Offline
Posts: 4222
Date:

2nd rd:

James Auckland (Gbr) bt Lee Childs (Gbr) 6-1 6-2

Paul Baccanello (Aus) bt Andis Juska (Lat) 1-0 ret

Trystan Meniane (Fra) bt Robert Varga (Ukr) 6-1 6-4

Marco Crugnola (Ita) bt Sean Thornley (Gbr) 6-2 6-3,

__________________


Grand Slam Champion

Status: Offline
Posts: 4222
Date:

More R2:


Marcus Sarstrand (Swe) bt David Brewer (Gbr) 6-1 6-0

Andrew Coelho (Aus) bt Stefano Ianni (Ita) 6-4 2-6 7-6 (10-8)

Robin Haase (Ned) bt Matthew Smith (Gbr) 6-3 6-3



__________________


administrator

Status: Offline
Posts: 18271
Date:

Colin says that the conditions in Bournemouth have been quite damp and overcast which has slowed the courts down and helped the foreign clay-court specialists. He said that he played some good tennis in rd1 but got bogged down in the heavy conditions. He says that Jamie Murray is heading back to Britain after Atlanta so they might play doubles next week.

__________________


administrator

Status: Offline
Posts: 18271
Date:

Info from Slabba [from: http://www.freewebs.com/alexslabinsky

GB F7 [Bournemouth] [15K] [clay]:
Rd1: A Slabinsky [GB] [WC] lost to S Thornley [GB] [WC] 6-7[3], 6-7[8]
Report: On paper this may look like a shock result but when you consider the circumstances it's not really surprising. Speaking after the match Alex said: "I only got back from Japan on Saturday and I wasn't planning to play Bournemouth as I hadn't been named among the wildcards. However, Chris Eaton withdrew and so they rang me up on Monday evening and said that they had a spare wildcard and I could just turn up and play. I was only able to fit in a 20 minute practise on the courts before the match ! Thornley played solidly and I was just really tired, almost falling asleep on the court ! I didn't really want to be there but the match was still fairly close. I played better in the 2nd set but it was too late."

Update on Alex's schedule: Alex says that he's not playing in Edinburgh now, he's been away for 3 months with no coach and he feels that he needs to do some training and work on some aspects of his game and do some gym work. Alex says that he'll take several weeks off, his next event may be the Turkey satellite in June, but he hasn't decided on his schedule yet.

__________________


administrator

Status: Offline
Posts: 18271
Date:

And then there were 3 [just Lee, Goodall and Bamford in action this week now]:


M Sarstrand [Swe] bt J Auckland [GB][1] 6-2, 6-2

__________________


administrator

Status: Offline
Posts: 18271
Date:

Colin Fleming and Andy Kennaugh were very unlucky this week, their rd1 conquerors have reached the final ! - Crugnola and Sarstrand.

Kennaugh produced the best performance from a Brit against a foreigner this week, he took Sarstrand to 3 sets in rd1.

__________________


Tennis legend

Status: Offline
Posts: 12606
Date:

I think Andy Kennaugh deserves some of the grass wildcards this year. He's done well in Queens and Wimbledon juniors and he's worked his socks off all over the world on futures tournaments this year. Could be his big break!

__________________
James Ward - Alex Ward - Kyle Edmund


administrator

Status: Offline
Posts: 18271
Date:

I agree Andy is one of our best future prospects and those who have seen him [eg Bladetiger] rate him very highly. However, I think it's possibly a year too soon for him to get wildcards into Queens or ATP Nottingham.

Queens and Nottingham only have 4 available and guys like Bogdanovic, Bloomers, Lee and Baker have been doing well in 15K futures and challengers, so they should get those wildcards. Also, Andy's just been competing against opposition ranked 300-1000 at the moment, I think that putting him up against top 100 players at this moment in time would be the equivalent of throwing him to the sharks, I'm not sure how beneficial the experience would be. He should get a wc for the qualies which will put him up against players ranked 100-200 which will be a good experience for him.

For Wimbledon: my picks would be Boggo, Lee, Bloomers and Baker. That leaves 4 up for grabs, I'd love to see all 4 of those wcs go to Brits but Wimbledon will probably award one to Phillipousis or Donald Young []. That leaves 3 to be decided from the wildcard playoff tournament. With no Boggo in it this year, Arvind Parmar has to be the favourite to win it and the remaining two will be between Mackin, Auckland, Smith, Fleming, Sherwood, Childs, Bamford and Kennaugh [Slabinsky isn't playing the grass-court season as like Jamie Baker last year, he feels that he'll have a better opportunity to win points in the European futures and satellites at that time]. Andy's got an outside shot of 2nd or 3rd place in the wc playoff, there often seem to be surprise results like Andy Banks making the final of it last year.

Regarding the grass court challengers: The cut for Surbiton is very high so the LTA are likely to hand wcs to Parmar, Lee, Bloomers and Baker. Andy Kennaugh should definately get a wc into the qualifying. With Nottingham and Manchester, Parmar, Lee, Bloomers, Mackin and Baker will probably get in direct so I think that Andy Kennaugh deserves to be given a chance in the main draw for both those events.





__________________


Tennis legend

Status: Offline
Posts: 12606
Date:

Yeah, you're probably right. Wild Cards into qualifying where he could get a few wins would be much better for his confidence and maybe he'll sneak a couple of main draw appearance to boost that all important ranking!

__________________
James Ward - Alex Ward - Kyle Edmund


administrator

Status: Offline
Posts: 18271
Date:

The wildcard playoff will be really interesting this year as it'll feature most of the top 20 British players, who do you think will have the best chances of getting through ?

The big servers: Auckland, Sherwood, Marray and Goodall all have great games for grass. Alan Mackin's style of play seems to suit the grass courts more than any other surface and he did extremely well to qualify last year for Queens. I forgot to mention Jamie Delgado [who always produces his best in the grass season]. Those 6 will probably be the favourites for the 2nd and 3rd wc playoff spots. Colin Fleming's game would seem to suit grass on paper but he's very much an unknown quantity on the surface.

Andy Kennaugh's best chance of qualifying for an ATP event could come in Nottingham when the qualies draw always seems to be quite weak, I remember that Dan Kiernan once nearly qualified. Does anyone know what Andy Kennaugh's serve is like and does he have any really big shots from the baseline ?




__________________
«First  <  1 2 | Page of 2  sorted by
 
Quick Reply

Please log in to post quick replies.

Tweet this page Post to Digg Post to Del.icio.us


Create your own FREE Forum
Report Abuse
Powered by ActiveBoard