Andy Kennaugh and Chris Eaton are in Bacau for a clay-court futures event this week. Both have good round 1 draws, avoiding the seeds.
Rd1:
A Kennaugh [GB] v T Bolanu [Rom] [wr: 869]
Preview: Teodor Bolanu is ranked 200 places lower than Andy but he has several factors in his favour. He's a left-hander, he's a clay-court specialist and he's playing on familiar courts while Andy will have only been practising on the Romanian clay for a few days. However, Bolanu's recent form isn't that good, he's lost in rd1 of Romania F1 and F2 in the last couple of weeks so he's definately a player Andy should beat. Bolanu's best performances of 2006 came in March in the Croatia 1 satellite where he reached 1 semi and 1 quarter-final. If Andy wins, he's likely to face 5th seeded Romanian Victor Ionita in rd2 [wr: 410].
C Eaton [GB] v A Lazar [Rom] [unranked]
Preview: Chris has as good a rd1 draw as he could have hoped for. His opponent is an unranked 17 year old qualifier who's never won a main draw match. His highlights in 2006 have been qualifying for Romania F2 and Romania F3 last week. However, Chris' luck with the draw ends there as in rd2 he's likely to play 4th seeded Belgian Jerome Masson who's ranked 376 and has a career high of 215 and has beaten Britain's Alex Bogdanovic in the past on the way to winning the Belgrade Challenger in 2005.
Chris and Andy have also teamed up in doubles. They play Victor Stanica [Rom] and Marius Zay [Rom] in rd1 and could possibly play the 2nd seeds in the quarters.
That's a disappointing couple of results for Chris and Andy.
Full scores: T Bolanu [Rom] bt A Kennaugh [GB] 6-4, 2-6, 7-6[1]
A Lazar [Rom] bt C Eaton [GB] 6-2, 6-1
Andy must be annoyed with himself for playing such a poor 3rd set tiebreak. I think that the bottom line this week is probably that neither had fully adjusted to the conditions. From the look of things, Chris has the most adjusting to do.
So what do you do with a week on your hands in Romania. Most players on the futures circuit spend the time arranging practise matches so that they get used to competing on the surface in a competitive environment.
