Matt Hanlin is seeded 12. Haven't seen him for a while.
Max Jones also in draw. Never heard of him!
Hanlin lost in first round to Ben Gonzales of USA. Score was 75 03 when Hanlin retired...in other words he was winning but was unlucky to have to retire.
Jones won in the first round defeating Jeremiah Fuller of USA 63 64.
Jones won in second round defeating Alex Menichini of USA (1437) (seeded 15) 61 64.
Jones won in third round defeating Drew Hoskins USA 62 62.
Final round Jones faces Joel Kielbowicz, another unranked American.
Congrats to Max Jones on qualifying for the main draw, superb performance The guy he beat in the final qualies round had knocked out the 3rd seed ranked 910 in rd2.
I agree johnny, these futures [and also some of the ones in portugal and occasionally in spain] are so tough, you have to win 4 matches over a weekend just to get into the main draw and even then you're got to win another match to get a point. Must be extremely gruelling. This one's a bit better because the matches are spread over three days but I've heard of cases where a player has had to play 2 matches on the Saturday, 2 on the Sunday and then a main draw rd1 on the Monday !
Francis is a really tough match, he beat Colin Fleming in straights in Binghamton oin August. He's also beaten Jamie Murray and Jamie Delgado this year. His best result came in February when he reached a futures final in the States, he's also reached 3 futures semis this year. He's been trying to qualify for lots of challengers, but with not that much success.
Good to see Matt Hanlin back in action. I wonder what happened to him, this time last year he did superbly in the GB 3 satellite, winning the masters. Then he went to the States and had a few poor results and then disappeared !! I heard that he came through as part of the US collegiate circuit, so I wondered if he'd gone back to college but I then found out that he was 26 so he will have surely finished college education by now ?
The guy he beat in the final qualies round had knocked out the 3rd seed ranked 910 in rd2.
