San Remo 25K+H Challenger (8 May)

steven · Tennis legend

San Remo 25K+H Challenger (8 May)

Sheddie · administrator

That's a nice draw for Arvind

and with the challenger being on clay, I'm sure it's very welcome !

The San Remo site is pretty good, photos and day by day reports. Unfortunately no live scores.

I'm actually very surprised that Adam Lownsbrough isn't playing. His Dad is the manager of the company who sponsor the challenger. Last year, Mr Lownsbrough was asked who he'd recommend for a wildcard and he suggested a certain British player called Adam who was "talented and aspiring to greater things." Presumably after the tournament committee saw Adam play, Mr Lownsbrough wasn't asked for his opinion on the wildcards this year !!! The wildcard fiasco was exposed this time last year by the Times and the BBC after this tournament.

Diego Junqueira [Arvind's projected rd2 opponent] is the 7th seed. He's 25 and is ranked 155. He has risen several hundred places in the last year playing predominantly on clay. He's lost in rd1 of his last two challengers but in April he reached the final of the Florianapolis 2 Challenger on Brazilian clay and in Jan he won the Florianapolis 1 challenger.

steven · Tennis legend

UltimateSlabbaFan wrote:

I'm actually very surprised that Adam Lownsbrough isn't playing. His Dad is the manager of the company who sponsor the challenger. Last year, Mr Lownsbrough was asked who he'd recommend for a wildcard and he suggested a certain British player called Adam who was "talented and aspiring to greater things." Presumably after the tournament committee saw Adam play, Mr Lownsbrough wasn't asked for his opinion on the wildcards this year !!! The wildcard fiasco was exposed this time last year by the Times and the BBC after this tournament.

... and by the Greg Rusedski Message Board AND BTZ beforehand - Neil Harman of the Times reads (and once in a blue moon contributes to) BTZ, so that may have prompted the story.

Reading your post, I've just realised (and a look at the new rankings confirms it) that sadly (since I've enjoyed following his bagel-strewn tour through Futures qualifying), this means Adam's no longer on the ranking list with effect from today.

johnnylad · Tennis legend

I noticed that too Steven. Adam Lownsborough is now unranked until he can find another wild card from somewhere. Maybe this time he'll hang his racket up

Sheddie · administrator

I doubt it'll be long before Adam buys another wildcard.

Adam can still play futures qualies though, most of the players in the qualies are unranked, being unranked just means that he won't get seeded though that'll make little difference in terms of the scorelines.

steven · Tennis legend

Arv won 2 & 1

Could be no. 7 seed Diego Junqueira up next, he plays R1 tomorrow.

Sheddie · administrator

Great win for Arvind

Even though it's against America's version of Adam Lownsbrough, I'm sure he'll take it as it's his first victory on clay since May 2003 when he beat George Bastl 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 in rd1 of a challenger.

Arvind has never won back to back matches on clay in a professional tournament !

This win was just his 2nd victory on clay since 2000 [it may be his 2nd ever, I haven't checked results pre-2000].

-- Edited by UltimateSlabbaFan at 09:30, 2006-05-16

Count Zero · Tennis legend

good to see big arvs back with a win, hes seemed to be MIA a bit recently, anyone know if hes had any injureis too?

Sheddie · administrator

Arvind hasn't been injured, the reason why he's been out of action for the past couple of weeks is due to the fact that it's the clay court season

Given that he's only ever won 2 pro matches on clay and that by flying out to a challenger and losing in rd1 he'd make a loss [due to flight costs and hotel fees], Arvind decided that it would be best to spend the time working on his game.

Sheddie · administrator

Rd2: D Junqueira [Arg] bt A Parmar [GB] 6-3, 6-2

Unfortunately Arvind never came particularly close in this match to ending his hoodoo on clay and winning consecutive matches on it for the first time in his career. I thought that Arvind would be probably too erratic in his groundstrokes for him to trouble Junqueira. Junqueira is ranked a lot higher at 154 so the result wasn't particularly unexpected.