As my meeting yesterday was cancelled, I managed to spend most of the day at Nottingham. As I went on the spur of the moment, I didn't take anything to make notes and, therefore, am only left with a series of impressions and my unreliable memory.

The first thing I noticed when I got there was that Mark Hilton had a video pointed at Dan Evans whenever he was at one end of the court. I assume that he now involved in Dan's coaching as well as playing doubles together.

The Dan Evans/Tom Burn was an interesting match as Dan had early breaks in both the first two sets, but Tom came back to level. Tom really seemed to hold his focus for the entire match, although he was under pressure on his serve more often than was Dan.

This was the first time that I had seen Dan play since he his match against Lee Childs at Nottingham last year. Dan has clearly grown since then and he does seem to have most of the shots (including one from between the legs) but is still lacking in the power to really penetrate and hurt his opponent. I suspect that he will be very disappointed by this result.

On the other Hand Tom looked as if he has rediscovered his appetite for the game and seems to be enjoying it again.

As the OOP had 8 mens matches all scheduled at the same time, followed by 8 womens matches, I had to watch some womens tennis. I am not a big fan of womens tennis but a one thing is stuck in my mind as I type. Both players in one match (Scarfi/Brown?) were screamers and you could hear them throughout the complex. If Sharapova is louder than these two, then I do understand what all the fuss is about.

I then watched most of the  Lowe/Illingworth game. Illingworth won a scrappy first set reasonably comfortably with Matt Lowe seemingly about to push the self destruct button, but he held off to recover and win the second set. At 4-0 in the third set, Matt Illingworth served a double fault. The umpire called deuce as Matt Lowe returned to his chair convinced that he had won the game. After a lot of shouting, the referee was called and it was agreed to replay the points in question. Matt Lowe duly broke and won his next service game but that was the end of his resistance.

Matches had started at 10.00am, it was now 3.10 pm and the Lee Childs/Dan Cox game (3rd on Court) was just starting. Matin Lee and Alex had yet to start. Dan played really well and has developed his game enormously since the last time I saw him. His forehand is huge but his double-handed backhand is not as strong. Dan had real problems dealing with Lee's serve and didn't once put him under any pressure. Both sets ended when Dan finally gave in to the pressure and lost his serve is in the last game of each set.  

Both Dans are clearly hugely talented and have fantastic games but are not quite there yet. However it won't be long before both are making a big impact on at least the British tennis scene.

So we get to Alex's match. I must admit that I did not watch a huge amount of this match but what I did see Alex was well in control. Ed is a big lad not just tall but hefty.  He is not the quickest mover around the court! One thing that Alex's report does not mention is that Ed had a lengthy injury time-out at the end of the first set (to his hand, I think, but don't quote me!). This clearly hampered him in the second set. So, maybe the celebrations should be slightly tempered.

Needless to say, I did not get much of a look at Kyle Brassington as Martin Lee clearly had to be somewhere else in a hurry. 

I stayed much longer than I had originally planned but I do like putting faces to names. As usual, I, and it appears most other spectators, drifted off once the singles had finished and left the doubles players to it!      

Thanks for that report Robxon, makes very interesting reading. Are you planning to go again this week or maybe next week ?

It's great to hear that Cox and Evans look so promising, Cox sounds like the better prospect at the moment with more weapons. How big is Evans, is he close to or over 6ft ? I'm just wondering as to whether he's likely to have a big serve in a couple of years time. It's a shame that Cox didn't play Burn, he probably would have won, when the Childs serve is on song, not many players outside the top 250 can deal with it.

It's great that Evans is working with Hilton, Hilton's experience of what it takes to beat top 200 and top 100 players will be invaluable for him. They have great facilities at the Nottingham tennis centre for building up physical strength so hopefully Dan will get in the gym and start pumping some iron over the winter so he can develop his groundstrokes into big shots.

Rd2 results:

M Lee [GB][1] bt T Greenland [GB] 6-1, 6-2

N Bamford [GB] bt J Marray [GB][8] 6-1, 6-1

R Junaid [Aus][4] bt A Slabinsky [GB] 6-0, 2-1 ret

T Rushby [GB] bt D Klier [Ger] 6-1, 0-6, 6-0

Martin Lee again seems to have been in a bit of a hurry. I wonder what on earth happened to Jonny Marray, a few days after nearly beating Rochus he's thrashed by Bamford. I hope Alex is ok, he said yesterday that he was a bit injured but didn't say it was particularly serious though it hampered his serve. Very bizarre scoreline between Rushby and Klier, it'd be interesting to hear what on earth went on there !

-- Edited by UltimateFlemingFan at 14:27, 2006-09-20

Rest of the Rd2 results:

M Fischer[Aut] bt D Brewer [GB] 6-3, 6-0 

T Burn [GB] bt B Knittel (3) [Ger] 6-3 6-2 

C Steiner [Aut] bt G Kretschmer (6) [Ger] 6-2 6-1

L Childs (7) [GB] bt M Illingworth [GB] 7-6(2) 6-0

-- Edited by Akhenaten at 16:12, 2006-09-20

Some curious results there today!

Hopefully someone was there or one of UBF's contacts can provide us with some insight into what happened in some of those matches(yep, that's a thinly veiled hint ).

Hope Slabba isn't too badly injured.

Martin Lee (Gbr) bt Neil Bamford (Gbr) 6-7 (5-7) 6-4 6-4

Rameez Junaid (Aus) bt Lee Childs (Gbr) 6-3 6-2  

Martin Fischer (Aut) bt Tom Burn (Gbr) 6-1 6-1     

Tom Rushby (Gbr) bt Christoph Steiner (Aut) 7-5 6-4,  

Heres hoping for an all British final

Great News for young Rushby...!

Tom Rushby (Gbr) bt Christoph Steiner (Aut) 7-5 6-4,  

Really hope he keeps it up and makes the final !!!