As the 5th seed Ed has a great chance of making it through to the main draw, he's the only player with a ranking in his section. Don't know much about him apart from that he's got a booming 1st serve which is particularly effective indoors.
Southwood and Harfield have played once before, Southwood won 6-2, 6-1 during a match in the qualifying for one of the weeks of the GB 1 satellite earlier this year.
Harfield is 21 and from Herefordshire and Worcestershire, he's got an LTA rating of 2.2.
Southwood is 23 and from Warwickshire, he's got an LTA rating of 1.2.
Ed Allinson's game seems to be very, very dependant on his big 1st serve, he doesn't do anything like aswell on the slower courts where it's not as effective
It's a decent chance for James Southwood to gain his first ever singles points, he's come close on a number of occasions in the past. His opponent reached the quarters of a futures in Italy a couple of weeks ago but that was on clay so hopefully James will have the edge on hard courts.
Rob Searle's got a great draw, if he wins he'll move into the top 1000.
Matt Smith hasn't had much success all year apart from making a couple of futures semis in April and June. He's got lots to defend in the autumn so he could do with a good run here to push up further towards the top 300. He's got a very kind draw as if he beats Miotto he'll face either a qualifier or a wildcard in rd2 and then would be seeded to face Finland's Tino Nieminen [brother of Jarkko] in the quarters who's ranked about 150 places lower. Matt and Alex have played once before, in nrd1 of Ireland F1 earlier this year on artificial grass. Matt won 6-4, 6-2 and went on to reach the semis. Alex was born in Italy and was one of our top juniors in 2001 and 2002, he has trained a lot in Belgium.
For Info, Rob Searle's QF 15K futures points from a time back got added this week.... so he has made into the top 1000 already. 10 ranking points, 936th place. A big rise in the last 6 week.
Also, David Brewer did get 3 pts from the Egypt Satellite, so is also in the top 1000 again.
That's a real shame about Matt Smith, do you know if he was injured or did he just miss his flight ? He would have had a great chance of making the latter stages of this one and gaining valuable points. He's got a few more free weeks before he'll have to start defending quite a few points.
Great win for Rob Searle Ghedin's been on a good run recently, making the quarters of GB F11 and then the final of GB F12, beating Mackin and Cox along the way. He'll take some stopping but then again Rob Searle's caused quite a few upsets with his big-hitting baseline game in the last month so hopefully another one is on the cards.
That's Miotto's 1st main draw win since June when he beat Allinson again in rd1 of Ireland F1, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3. This is a great opportunity for him to make the quarters, an unranked qualifier is probably the best possible rd2 opponent he could hope for.
No news yet on James Southwood's result. Shame this isn't a 15K as then he would have got a ranking point for qualifying