Greece F1

Sally · Grand Slam Champion

Greece F1

Sally · Grand Slam Champion

Doubles:

1R:

(1) Goodall/Irwin- bye

(3) Bamford/May v Amoruso/Grassi (ITA)

1/4:

(1) Goodall/ Irwin v Kuseta/Piyamongkol (CRO/GER)

Niall · Pro player

It is a bit strange seeing so many Brits play a tournament in Greece when there is a perfectly good tournament in Britain. I hope they are not running scared of 15k level opposition.

I would particularly like to see Jamie Baker play higher ranked players but I think he might be looking to cover the points he won this time last year in Mexico. It looks like a good draw, here's hoping he justifies his seeding.

Sheddie · administrator

Great start to the week for the fabulous Baker boy:

He beat Grassi 6-3, 6-3

This week is going to be one of damage limitation for Jamie as he's defending points from winning Mexico F4 at this time last year so in order to not lose any points he must win this tournament. He's got a good draw, no one in his half who I'm particularly worried about. I reckon that the title contenders are Goodall, Bourgeois and Baker.

Jamie will be pleased to be back on his favoured outdoor hard again.

Sheddie · administrator

Niall wrote:

It is a bit strange seeing so many Brits play a tournament in Greece when there is a perfectly good tournament in Britain. I hope they are not running scared of 15k level opposition.
I would particularly like to see Jamie Baker play higher ranked players but I think he might be looking to cover the points he won this time last year in Mexico. It looks like a good draw, here's hoping he justifies his seeding.

I don't think that the Brits here in Greece are playing the 3 futures events to avoid the British 15k fields, I think it's more likely that they're trying to avoid the clay courts

The courts in Greece are fast and bouncy which suits aggressive attacking players like Goodall and Bamford who would be hindered by the slow clay of Bournemouth and Edinburgh. Also Goodall and Bamford are likely to be seeded for all 3 weeks here while that wouldn't have happened in the 15ks in Britain, I think they're likely to win more points here than they would have done in Bournemouth and Edinburgh. Colin Fleming would also be competing here but changed his mind for the reasons which I pmmed to you.

It would have been interesting to see how Jamie Baker did on the clay but I reckon he's made a sensible decision. It'll be a lot easier to win this tournament and defend his points from winning Mexico F4 last year than it would have been to reach the final of GB F7 which is packed full of European cay-court specialists. Also, he'll be seeded 1 for Greece F2 and F3 so he has an opportunity to gain a sackful of points in the next couple of weeks, he's back on his fav surface - outdoor hard and the courts i Greece are similar to those in Australia and New Zealand where he did so well in Feb and March.

As he's not going to be in RG qualies, I wonder whether he'll try and qualify for a couple of clay court challengers after Greece F3 before Surbiton.

Sheddie · administrator

Mixed results from Greece:

Rd1:

N Bamford [GB][7] bt N Spyrol [Gre] [WC] [unranked] 6-1, 6-1

A Grubin [Scg] bt J May [GB] 6-3, 6-2

J Goodall [GB][4] bt A Jakupovic [Gre][WC][unranked] 6-1, 6-1

L Bourgeois [Aus][2] bt R Irwin [GB] 6-2, 6-2

Emphatic wins for Bamford and Goodall, though they were expected against unranked opposition. Jim May's loss was the only surprising result, as Grubin is ranked 50 places lower at 776 and Jim has been in good form lately.

Rd1 doubles:

J Goodall/R Irwin [GB] [1] v bye

N Bamford/J May [GB][3] bt F Amoruso/C Grassi [It] 7-6[3], 6-2

Sheddie · administrator

Rd2:

J Baker [GB][1] v V Kolik [Isr] [wr:836]

N Bamford [GB][7] v G Balafoutas [Gre] [q] [unranked]

J Goodall [GB][4] v A Grubin [Scg]

A Baker-Bamford quarter-final looks very likely now, Kolik is ranked a lot lower than Baker and struggled through a rd1 match against a qualifier ranked 1412. Bamford's had a very nice draw, his rd2 opponent was either going to be an unranked wildcard or an unranked qualifier, lets hope he can take advantage and earn himself a handy 2 points. Josh has an opportunity to gain revenge for Jim against Alex Grubin. Grubin is a 19 year old leftie clay-court specialist. In his last tournament he reached the semis of a 10K in Italy on hard courts.

Madeline · Admin:Moderator + Tennis Legend

UltimateSlabbaFan wrote:

Mixed results from Greece:

Rd1:

L Bourgeois [Aus][2] bt R Irwin [GB] 6-2, 6-2

What on earth have you got against Irwin, USF? Or did you just hit the wrong emoticon?

Sheddie · administrator

Oops, just hit the wrong emoticon, lol. I meant

Akhenaten · Pro player

Sadly...
R2
Victor Kolik bt Jamie Baker 36 63 75

But, good news...
Neil Bamford bt George Balafoutas 46 64 61

Josh Goodall's not played yet

Sheddie · administrator

What happened to Jamie Baker

That's a bad, bad result against a player 550 places lower and it'll mean that Baker drops out of the top 300 to approx 307 as most of his points won in Mexico F4 last year have been undefended. He needs a good run in Greece F2 and F3 if he's going to break the top 275 in time to get an automatic Wimbledon wildcard which was his aim for the year. I should have a full match report this evening which will hopefully tell us a bit more on this match.

Good for Bamford to have earned two points but having been taken to 3 sets by an unranked player I don't hold out much hope of him beating Kolik.

Better news is that both British doubles pairs have reached the semis:

QFs: J Goodall/R Irwin [GB][1] bt D Kuseta/P Piyamongkol 6-4, 6-2

N Bamford/J May [GB][3] bt A Inbar/A Weintraue [Isr] 6-3, 6-0

Semis:

J Goodall/R Irwin [GB[ [1] v J Cerretani/S Moros [USA][4]

N Bamford/J May [GB][3] v P Gemouchidis/A Jakupovic [Gre]

Here's hoping for an all-British final

Akhenaten · Pro player

R2
Josh Goodall beat Grubin 36 63 62

plays Raphael Durek (436) of Oz in QF

Sally · Grand Slam Champion

Doubles final:

Bamford/May d. Goodall/Irwin 64 64

http://www.atptennis.com/en/common/TrackIt.asp?file=http://www.atptennis.com/posting/2006/137/mdd.pdf

steven · Tennis legend

UltimateSlabbaFan wrote:

Good for Bamford to have earned two points but having been taken to 3 sets by an unranked player I don't hold out much hope of him beating Kolik.

Nor did I, but he only went and thrashed him!

QF: (7) Neil Bamford WR 613 beat Victor Kulick (ISR) WR 838 by 3 & 0
QF: (4) Josh Goodall WR 428 beat (5) Raphael Durek (AUS) WR 440 by 2 & 4

SF: (7) Neil Bamford WR 613 v Amit Inbar (ISR) WR 728
SF: (4) Josh Goodall WR 428 v (6) Ishay Hadash (ISR) WR 544

Well, can you believe it - just when it looked like all was lost, we have two players surviving to the final Saturday of a tournament for the first time for weeks, and they are both facing lower-ranked players for a place in the Final. Bammy has been ridiculously jammy, only having had to face two unranked players and two players ranked more than 100 places below him on his way to the Final, but you can only beat the opponents who are put in front of you and it's pretty impressive that he virtually blew Jamie Baker's conqueror off court today! Josh's QF win against a player ranked just 12 players below him (the kind of match it seems almost inevitable that a Brit will lose these days) was also extremely convincing.

Jamie must be kicking himself all the way to next week for missing out on all the relatively easy points!

-- Edited by steven at 19:46, 2006-05-05