GB F11 - Ilkley

Sally · Grand Slam Champion

RE: GB F11 - Ilkley

imoen · Admin: Moderator+Tennis Legend

thats good news, well done to both

johnnylad · Tennis legend

Sally wrote:

More R2:

[7] Jonathan Marray GBR d. [q] Samuel Groth GBR 67 63 63

Tom Rushby GBR d. [5] Josselin Ouanna FRA 67 60 61

Great results for Jony and Tom. Dead suprised about Josh tho! All good things must come to an end!

Niall · Pro player

Friday Results

Quarter-finals:

Philip Stolt (USA) bt Riccardo Ghedin (Ita) 6-3 7-6 (7-4)

Lee Childs (Gbr) bt Jonathan Marray (Gbr) 7-5 7-6 (7-3)

Julie Maes (Fra) bt Tom Rushby (Gbr) 6-3 6-0

Alan Mackin (Gbr) bt KC Corkery (USA) 7-6 (7-5) 6-4

Semi-finals:

Philip Stolt (USA) vs (3) Alan Mackin (Gbr)

Lee Childs (Gbr) vs Julie Maes (Fra)

-- Edited by Niall at 16:21, 2006-08-03

Sheddie · administrator

Great win for Mackin yesterday, Bladetiger went to watch and said that he played pretty solidly, Corkery served himself out of trouble a lot and there was just the one break, at 4-4 in set 2.

Lee Childs now leads Jonny 4-2 on head-to-heads. Lee leads 3-1 in matches on grass which surprises me. [Jonny won 7-6, 6-4 in rd1 of the 2001 Manchester Challenger, Lee won 6-3, 6-3 in the quarters of Surbiton 2003, Jonny won 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the semis of Uzbekstan F4 on hard in 2004, Lee won 6-4, 7-5 in rd1 of Manchester challenger 2004 and 6-2, 6-3 in the 2005 GB 1 satellite].

Shame Rushby wasn't able to build on his fantastic rd2 victory, Maes is becoming a bit of a pain this week knocking out all the Brits. Hopefully Lee can deal with him effectively in the semis.

Mackin has played Stolt once before, winning 6-4, 6-3 in the 2004 Indonesia 1 satellite. With both players possessing good grass court serves, break point chances will be minimal, it'll come down to who plays the big points best. Wouldn't be surprised if it was decided in two breakers.

Sheddie · administrator

Stolt continues his irritating run

P Stolt [USA] bt A Mackin [GB][3] 7-5, 2-6, 7-5

I wish I knew the story behind that scoreline, I wonder if Alan was a break up early in the 3rd after dominating the 2nd so easily. 6 points for Alan this week but if he'd won he would have doubled his takings

Just Lee Childs left now, let's hope he can beat Julie and ensure some home interest tomorrow. Surely 4 Brits can't all lose in a row to a Frenchwoman !

Bladetiger · Pro player

Pretty disappointing, Lee Childs lost 63 67 64.

One v small consolation Jonny Marray and Jim May are thru to the doubles final after a 76 (3) 63

Sheddie · administrator

That's really disappointing, both brits losing today against opponents ranked at least 100 places lower. I really expected at least one finalist to be British given that the top 4 seeds were all Brits.

Ranking increases:

Goodall: 256 to 253

Mackin: 362 to 346

Childs: 434 to 408

Marray: 475 to 467

Rushby: 730 to 695

Jonny Marray's run should move him back into the top 200 doubles

-- Edited by UltimateFlemingFan at 22:15, 2006-08-04

afe · Social player

Apologies if this is unfair to the Brits, but apart from Goodall's very good recent run (pity he couldn't sustain it to the end of the grass court season), the 'second tier' players haven't been able to take full advantage of tournaments on their best surface (apart from Mackin). There's a big difference in points between semifinalist (6) and winner (18), and for whatever reasons the Brits haven't been able to take advantage of the LTA's £15000 tournaments. I haven't checked previous results, but how is it that Stolt and Maes, with all the disadvantages of travelling and being in a foreign country, beat so many higher ranked Brits?!! It rarely happens the other way round - Brits winning in other countries, although there have been some notable exceptions.

The performance of those players Baker, Bloomfield, Fleming, Lee) in US/Canadian hard court Challenger tournaments have also been disappointing so far, though they deserve credit for attempting to make it there. Let's hope their endeavour is rewarded!

Overall however there is still no real prospect of any of these players making a breakthrough into the top 100, although I would be delighted if at least one of them does: Jamie Baker is maybe the best prospect with a game suitable for a range of surfaces, not just grass or fast indoor courts. Going back to my original point, if the players whose best surface is grass can't win a Futures in Britain there's very few opportunities for them to make and sustain big moves in the rankings.

It all goes to show how special Andy Murray is, but also remember to make the initial breakthrough he had to WIN 2 US Challengers, do well in others and reach Rd 3 at Wimbledon to get his ranking high enough to play ATP tournaments regularly.

Sheddie · administrator

For most of the Brits [with the exception of Jonny Marray and a couple of others], grass isn't their favourite surface or their best surface. Most of the brits prefer playing on outdoor/indoor hard or acrylic and that's where they tend to have their best results.

The grass court challengers in GB are always tougher than ordinary 25Ks because they're the only grass court ones and so all the top grass players ranked between 75 and 200 all sign-up making the fields really strong and so the Brits are always playing opponents ranked at least 50-400 places above them.

This week in Ikley has been disappointing. I think that the change mid-week from grass to indoor hard caused problems for lots of the Brits - Goodall in particular [I don't think he would have lost to Stolt on grass]. I'd say that the highlights were probably Lee Childs returning to some form and also Tom Rushby having a couple more good results.
The Brits who dominated the GB futures last year were Goodall, Bloomfield, Lee, Baker, Fleming and Smith. Of these, Goodall, Bloomfield, Lee, Baker and Fleming have stepped up to challenger level now and Smith is out of form which is another reason why the Brits haven't dominated as they did last year.

I think we will see some better results as the GB circuit moves onto the hard courts starting this week in Wrexham. Hopefully Bloomers, Lee and baker can start to find some form in North American aswell in coming weeks. Fleming's bad result last week can be explained by jetlag, prior to that he'd had some great wins on the grass. The American hard courts should suit his game. Josh Goodall may struggle this week in Binghampton but once he's adjusted to the bouncier, slower hard courts he has a good chance of doing well.

I think that Bloomfield, Lee, Goodall and Baker all have a good chance of making the top 150 in the next year or so, they've started to show some real promise this year. Plus there's Bogdanovic who's starting to really make a push towards the top 100 and injury-permitting, he has a chance of getting close by the end of the year.

Sheddie · administrator

LTA report from rd2 [Wednesday]:

The heatwave of July is a distant memory for those who have made the trip to West Yorkshire for the men’s $15,000 and women’s $10,000 international events in Ilkley this week.

With no play possible on the grass courts due to heavy rain for the past 48 hours, events were moved on to the indoor courts and the change in surface led to a number of upsets in both tournaments.

Top seed Josh Goodall went down 7-6 in the third set to American Philip Stolt to end a run that has seen him reach the quarter-finals or better in three successive events, including capturing the recent $15,000 Futures title in Felixstowe.

In the women’s $10,000 event world No.1197 Olivia Scarfi enjoyed a fantastic win over top seed and world No. 511 Danielle Brown 6-3, 2-6, 6-4.

Playing indoors did nothing to disrupt the concentration of third seed and recent Davis Cup team member Alan Mackin who looked in fantastic form as he beat Frenchman Oliver Charroin 6-1, 6-2 to book his place in the quarter-finals.

Yorkshire star Jonathan Marray beat Samuel Groth 6-7, 6-3, 6-3 to set up an all-British quarter-final with Lee Childs.

It will be the first meeting between the pair since the beginning of 2005 and with Childs currently leading their head-to-head record 3-2, Marray will be hoping for plenty of support on his home turf.

"It was a really difficult match today and was very close until the end," Marray said of his second round win.

"Groth has got a big serve and I struggled with it a bit in the first set and we were both broken.

"The second and third sets were a bit more comfortable. I’m really looking forward to tomorrow. I haven’t played Lee for a while and he has managed to get the better of me the last couple of times we’ve met but we’ve always had great matches.”

Sheddie · administrator

LTA report from the quarters [Thursday]:

A break in the rain-clouds in Yorkshire on Thursday meant that a full day’s play was possible in Ilkley at the men’s and women’s international events and the Tropicana British Tour.

In the men’s $15,000 event, British players Alan Mackin and Lee Childs made it through to the semi-finals while in the women’s $10,000 event six British players booked their places in the quarter-finals.

Mackin continued his recent good form with a 7-6(5), 6-4 victory over American KC Corkery to reach his first semi-final since February.

The Scot commented: “I played a good match, it's always tough facing someone you haven’t seen before not knowing what to expect. I’ve been concentrating on Challenger events recently so I don’t know many of the players in the draw.

"He played very well, the first set was really tight. I got a break early in the second set but lost a bit of concentration and let him get back in the match. After that I played better again and managed to close out the match.”

Mackin will face American Philp Stolt for a place in the final. When asked about his opponent he said: “I don’t know much about him but he’s had some good wins this week. I’ve been playing really well on grass recently so I’m looking forward to the match.”
Childs overcame Yorkshire No.2 Johnny Marray 7-5, 7-6(3) without allowing Marray a single break point all match and will play Julian Maes in the semi-final.

In the women’s $10,000 event, Amanda Elliot followed her first ever win in a $10,000 event with a 2-6, 6-4, 6-4 success over Melissa Berry and will play Anna Smith in the quarter-finals. The only two non-British players left in the draw, Ana Cetnik and Louise Doutrelant, will battle it out for a place in the semis.

In the doubles event there were wins at the quarter-final stage for second seeds Jim May and Marray but top seeds Josh Goodall and Ross Hutchins lost to American pair Shane La Porte and James Ludlow.

Meanwhile, in the Tropicana British Tour event former British No.5 Gary Henderson is into the quarters and is hoping to recapture the form that took him to the Ilkley British Tour title 13 years ago.

Niall · Pro player

Singles Final:

Julien Maes (Fra) bt Philip Stolt (USA) 6-2 6-3

Doubles Final:

Jonathan Marray & Jim May (Gbr) b Shane La Porte & James Ludlow (USA) 7-6 (7-3) 6-3