On BBCi they just said that him and James Auckland are playing doubles last oin court 8 today. Him and some woman just me after very surprised by that and puts into perflection, how serious was the injury yesterday?
Andy says he is fit and that he has known about the back problem for a while now. So lets believe him.
So his back started to hurt and led to him loosing the Monfills match. He is still fit...do you get what I mean ?
Playing doubles is way less on the body so they say.....I have a sneaking feeling that He and Auckland did not just think of this at the last minute....maybe to make up for not playing in the DC....Jame's ranking has been going south since then so hopefully this is a 'make-up' ?
I think Andy has enough people around him to tell him not to play if injured. So I think he is not injured as such...and he can play doubles. Doubt he will play today anyway due to the rain.
He basically said in his post match interview that the only reason he carried on playing yesterday was because he didn't want people to think that he wasn't a fighter. The guy is too pig-headed for his own good. Neil Harman was talking in the Times about how Andy should think about skipping the grass court season in order to look after himself, but Andy is playing on anyway. I can see why he wants to play, but I have to question if the guy is trying to prove a point to his long term detriment.
I guess at the very least, if he plays and has to quit halfway through then James will still get the ranking points but it does seem pretty strange. Good to see them playing doubles anyway, I just hope it doesn't come back and haunt him.
Interesting that James Auckland is putting RG doubles ahead of Surbiton qualies, that means he'll miss out on Surbiton next week, unless he flies back for the Surbiton doubles main. That shows that doubles has become the main priority for him.
In rd1 they play Aussies, Ashley Fisher and Jordan Kerr. Fisher is ranked 54 in doubs and Kerr is ranked 52. However, they've never done particularly well at RG, their best result is reaching the 2nd round. They're both doubles specialists, neither have ever been in the top 350 for singles.
It's a winnable match assuming that Andy is fully fit. In rd2 they could face the Bryans - that's the really bad news !
From the sound of things, Andy could barely walk by the end of the Monfils match - very surprising that he's entered the doubles especially as the Times match report said that his current injury would make him quite a big doubt for Queens !
Andy / James have been put back from the original slot instead Ferrer is playing his doubles with Vicente and loosing to Knowle / Melzer. The OOP is out for Thursday and they do not appear on that. Its 8.10pm Paris time so cant see them starting tonight !!!
Very strange decision. I did wonder if he was going to play doubles with James when James was watching Andy's match with Monfils, but assumed he would withdraw from the doubles to recover properly.
I guess if its an ongoing injury that flares up and dies down (which it seems to be) then playing doubles won't harm it. I think we just have to trust that the people around Andy wouldn't let him do something if it was a really bad idea. (I also don't think Andy himself would do that, he doesn't care that much about doubles does he?)
I hope they do well, not only for James' sake but also because that should boost Andy's confidence.
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