That's a great draw for Alex on his best surface for this 15K futures - it's quite a weak field. He should reach the quarters and there I think he'd have a great chance against the 2nd seed Bastian Knittlel. It's important for Alex to do well here as after this tournament he's taking a break from tennis and going on holiday for 2 weeks with his family.
His rd1 match is tomorrow, 2nd on court 4 at about midday GMT.
Wolfgang Schranz has reached a high of 135 but that was way back in 1998, he's now 30. His best result of 2006 was reaching the final of Spain F8 in March but since then he's not done very well, losing in several challenger qualies.
That's a dreadful result for Alex, missing out on a great opportunity there to make the quarters.
I think he's probably suffering from burn-out after playing almost consistently since mid-May. Hopefully the break will do him the world of good, he's got lots of points to defend from mid-October onwards so he needs some good results in September.
