jonny wins too

63 31 so a retirement

so thats 2/3 so far, with 2 to play

RobC wrote:

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3/4 with 1 to play:

ARAZI H.          4 6 3  
BLOOMFIELD R. 6 4 6

-- Edited by RobC at 20:28, 2006-09-12

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Wake me up...please someone !!!!

Say Mackin wins....when was the last time we had 4 Brits in the 2nd round of a challenger outside the UK ?

Count Zero wrote:

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obviusly we dont know wessels state (mind/injury), but i belive thats alex's 1st bagel of the year, his last was back in april 05 i think. Even when he is comfortably in control of a match i think he rarely has the mental edge to take the bagel, as it does often need full concentration when you are walking the set not to let your level drop.

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Yeah that the first bagel Alex's inflicted since he beat Golmard 6-4, 6-0 in Mexico City in April 2005. I agree, it must take a lot of concentration to really keep your level up when you're winning a set easily, must be quite easy to let your focus drop for a couple of games.

I doubt that Wessels was injured, he would surely have retired if that had been so. Probably that Alex was just outplaying him completely and his head went down in set 2.

From what I've seen and heard of Wessels he's got a really big serve and a great game for indoors [he's beaten Andy Murray indoors], so it's a fantastic result for Boggo to overcome him so comfortably. Really bodes well for the rest of this week.

The other results today are absolutely fantastic, for a non-GB challenger it's slightly surreal.

Superb win for Jonny against another really big serving and big hitting opponent, Elseneer is really dangerous on fast surfaces [as Parmar will vouch having lost to him several times on grass]. Great to see Jonny winning indoors as bizarrely in the past, he's tended to not have much success in the final part of the year on the fast courts.

I expected Bloomfield to beat Arazi as the Moroccan is nothing like the player he once was but he's obviously still very dangerous on his day so it was a great win for Richard who's now got a very good chance to make the quarters.

The final result from Mackin was possibly the best of the lot and capped a great day for British tennis. Haehnel won a challenger just a couple of weeks ago but it looks like Mackin outplayed him despite a rankings difference of over two hundred places. Despite the fact that Mackin's ranking has gone down this year, his level has most definately increased, he's added more weapons to his game and he can really hurt opponents now with his serve and forehand while previously he was just very consistent. His coach Mike Raphael really feels that he can step up to the next level rankings wise in 2007 and believes that he and Boggo will make the top 100.

I'll check the stats to find the last time we had 4/5 players in rd2 of an overseas challenger.

Rd1 photos from Orleans of Mackin and Bloomfield now up on my british player photo gallery. For the url go to the "Who's who of the British players" thread in this section.

Looking ahead to rd2:

J Marray [GB] v T Ascione [Fr]
A Bogdanovic [GB][6] v A Stoppini [It]
R Bloomfield [GB] v D Meffert [Ger]
A Mackin [GB] v M Zverev [Ger]

Jonny's got a tough match against 25 year old Frenchman Thierry Ascione ranked 193. Ascione upset 4th seed and world no 92 Janko Tipsarevic in rd1, 6-3, 6-4. Ascione has also reached the top 100 in the past, he got to no 81 in 2004. He says that indoors is his favourite surface but earlier this year he only won 2 matches indoors in 5 tournaments. He's spent most of the year competing on clay and has made 2 quarters and 1 semi in challengers. He played both the Aussie and the French Open, losing in rd1 of both. In this tournament last year, Ascione made the quarters.
Jonny has played him once before, winning 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 in rd1 of US Open qualies 2005.

Alex has got Italian Andreas Stoppini in rd2. Stoppini beat Frenchman Jean Lisnard 6-4, 6-4 in rd1. Stoppini is ranked 248. He hit the headlines briefly this summer with a straight sets win over Andre Agassi in ATP Washington when he reached rd3 after qualifying. The hard-hitting Italian will test Alex, he's reached a challenger final on hard courts in the States this year and has wins over Jamie Baker and Martin Lee. Stoppini also reached two futures finals indoors earlier this year. Alex should win though, he has a great chance to reach the semis with Tipsarevic now out.

Richard plays German Dominic Meffert who's ranked 225. Meffert has had a poor year with lots of early defeats, the one highlight was in February when he qualified for ATP Rotterdam and reached rd2 [courtesy of Sluiter retiring when leading 4-2]. In that tournament he beat Arvind Parmar in qualies before losing to him in straights in rd2. He doesn't have a particularly big game and Parmar found he was able to attack the Meffert 2nd serve. As the match is indoors, Richard has to be the favourite.

Mackin faces the fast improving 18 year old German Mischa Zverev, a former junior no 3. Zverev has made big strides this year, he's up to a ranking of 202 and beat the hard-hitting Swede Michael Ryderstedt 7-5, 6-2 in rd1. He's beaten top 100 player Janko Tipsarevic twice this year and his biggest achievement has been winning the Dublin challenger in June on artificial grass. Aswell as that he's won 4 futures titles, 2 indoors. They've played once before, in rd1 of last year's Aachen challenger on indoor carpet when Zverev won 6-2, 6-4.

lol knowing boggo he going to go on a blistering run this week and next week, and make us all wonder once again why he cant do that in the DC.

Big Dick has just won his 2nd round match in straight sets so jonny should be on now or very shortly