This was a really good rd1 draw for Boggo. The veteran Algerian just sneaked into the qualies draw with a current ranking of 262. Saoudi's career high is 212 and that was reached in 2003.

They've never played before

Saoudi has played entirely on clay since March. He lost in qualies for the San Remo challenger and lost in rd1 of the Rome Challenger. His best result this year was qualifying for ATP Casablanca in April and reaching rd2 before losing in straights to Germany's Bjorn Phau. Saoudi has competed predominantly in clay-court futures this year, he's reached 5 semis and won a futures title in France on indoor hard in January.

The last time he played a Brit was in August 2004 when he lost in straights to Richard Bloomfield.

Looking at the rest of Boggo's draw I think he has a decent chance of qualifying if he hits form here. In rd2 he would play either Brian Vahaly [wr:233] who hasn't won a match since early March and he's been losing his matches pretty heavily, or Argentina's Marcelo Charpentier [wr:754]. Charpentier has been out injured since 2003 and he played his first match in over 2 years this march. He's playing using his protected ranking. However, he's been struggling, a futures quarter-final has been is best result.

Alex is seeded to play 5th seed Dick Norman in rd3 here, everyone knows about Norman's booming serve but that's his main weapon and it should be much less on clay. Norman's best result on clay this year is reaching rd2 of a challenger.

-- Edited by UltimateSlabbaFan at 09:19, 2006-05-23