i think jamie would beat james if they meet, even tho james in now higher. i think jonny can make the final round but might struggle vs lugassy.
boggo should be 6 seed or so, but may be a bit flat after the long injury lay off, i think he is using this event to see if he will be fit enough to go to america.
hopefully we can get at least 2 brits in the MD (my money would be on jamie).
its a great website here, but unfortunately its raining there at the moment, i wonder if the qualies will have liuve scores?
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Count Zero - Creator of the Statistical Tennis Extrapolation & Verification ENtity or, as we like to call him, that steven.
yeah i noticed that too on closer inspection, hopefully when the md gets going they will put more stuff up. still if it gives us scores and steaming thats all the really important, it is nice to know the weather too as well.
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Count Zero - Creator of the Statistical Tennis Extrapolation & Verification ENtity or, as we like to call him, that steven.
md's out, boggo has got a german ranked 266, who looks like a clay court player, his 2nd round mathc looks winnable too, lets hope he is fit enough to take advantge of it.
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Count Zero - Creator of the Statistical Tennis Extrapolation & Verification ENtity or, as we like to call him, that steven.
The website says that the live scoring and live streaming coverage will start on Monday ! to the Graz tournament organisers for providing this, it's a fantastic feature.
Jonny Marray should have an easy win over wildcard Herbert Jerich who's never played a match before on the pro tour. He has a straightforward path through to the final qualifying round where he's likely to play France's Gary Lugassy, seeded 2nd and ranked 309. Jonny leads him 1-0 on head-to-heads. Jonny played this challenger last year, losing in straight sets in rd1.
James Auckland's rd1 match against 20 year old Austrian Patrick Gamauf should be straightforward given that Gamauf is ranked over 1000 places lower and has only ever won 2 main draw matches.
It'll be interesting to see the result of Delgado-Hutchins, I'm not sure who to predict as the winner. This'll be Jamie's 1st match on hard courts since April and it remains to be seen whether he's still feeling the psychological effects of his DC defeats. Hutchins is ranked about 70 places lower, he had those two superb wins in rd1 of the Manchester and Nottingham challengers but he's struggled since Nottingham, losing in rd1 of Ikley and Wrexham. They've played twice before: Hutchins won 6-4, 6-3 in rd1 of GB F8 in 2003 but Jamie won 6-1, 6-2 in rd1 of Surbiton qualifying on grass this year. I have a feeling that Jamie will sneak this one in 3.
Looking ahead to a possible Auckland-Delgado or Auckland-Hutchins rd2 match: James has played Jamie twice before, the head-to-head is 1-1. James won 7-5, 3-6, 6-1 in rd2 of the 2003 Wrexham challenger and Jamie won 7-6, 7-5 in rd1 of Queens qualifying in 2004. James has never played Ross before.
It'll be interesting to see how rusty James is as he hasn't played singles since Manchester Challenger in June.
Despite the draws being published so efficiently, the rd1 and rd2 qualifying results from yesterday are still nowhere to be seen.
Incidentally this challenger is held on rebound ace courts, the same surface which is used at the Aussie Open.
As Count Zero says Boggo's got a great draw, he's seeded 6 and in rd1 faces German Dieter Kindlmann ranked 266 and he has been as high as 130 but that was back in 2004. He's lost his last 6 matches including a 6-2, 6-3 rd1 loss to a compatriot ranked 525 in a futures event last week. In rd2 he has either Michal Navratil or Tobias Summerer both of whom are ranked lower.
-- Edited by UltimateFlemingFan at 09:50, 2006-08-13
Apparently all the matches yesterday were completely rained off. Qualifying rds 1 and 2 will be today and the final qualifying round will be tomorrow so hopefully we'll get live streaming and scoring for that.
Comfortable first win for James. Hopefully that has warmed him up a bit without taking too much out of him.
Auckland and Delgado are top seeds in the doubles and Hutchins Marray are second seeds. And to be honest there's no one in the doubles draw that either team should be afraid of!!
Great win for James It must feel good to have a nice easy first round match and get used to the courts and conditions without being overly tested.
He will play Jamie Delgado who as predicted [] beat Ross Hutchins in a close 3 setter 4-6, 7-5, 6-2
Auckland-Delgado should be on court now. As posted earlier in this thread, ames has played Jamie twice before, the head-to-head is 1-1. James won 7-5, 3-6, 6-1 in rd2 of the 2003 Wrexham challenger and Jamie won 7-6, 7-5 in rd1 of Queens qualifying in 2004. My money's on James in 3.
Jonny Marray whitewashed the unranked Austrian wildcard, the first time he's inflicted a double bagel since the New Delhi challenger in April 2003. He's up against Croatia's Antonio Sancic in rd2, Sancic won in 2 breakers in rd1. He's 17 and is unranked, this is his first tournament since February and he's never qualified for a future or a challenger before. He's ranked 245 in juniors. I predict Jonny to win in 2.
It's a shame Ross Hutchins and Jonny Marray haven't been able to continue their partnerships with Josh Goodall and Martin Lee since the Nottingham challenger. Looking at the draw, Auckland and Delgado have to be massive favourites to win it and hopefully with Hutchins and Marray seeded 2, it'll be an all-Brit final.
I got the winner right but not the number of sets, a surprisingly easy win for Auckland over Delgado. I've never been able to understand why Delgado's baseline game only appears to be effective on grass, on that surface he's beaten guys like Monfils and Dent and taken sets off Grosjean and Agassi, however on other surfaces he often loses to guys ranked well outside the top 400.
However, unfortunately a shocking loss for Jonny against his unranked opponent who had never before won two matches in challenger qualies:
Qualifying rd2: A Sancic [Cro] bt J Marray [GB] 4-6, 6-4, 6-3
In fairness though, I think Jonny finds playing on Rebound ace really tough, it's so difficult to serve-volley on it.
Qualifying rd3: J Auckland [GB][3] v T Oger [Fr][8]
A fairly tricky match for James against the upcoming French player. Oger is ranked 487 but has jumped a lot this year having won two futures titles in Poland and Norway and also reached another futures final in Norway. In Manchester this year he qualified and beat Colin Fleming to reach rd2 where he held match points against Martin Lee before losing in 3 sets. He's won his first two matches fairly comfortably: 6-4, 7-5 and 6-4, 6-4. The match is first on court Seisburg tomorrow at 11.00am.
A big slice of good news is that we will get to see Bogdanovic v Kindlmann which is on centre court [I'm assuming that the streaming only covers centre as for the last two years]. Hopefully the scoreboard will cover Auckland's match and the Hutchins/Marray doubles match which is also on court seisburg.