GB F14 - Nottingham - 15K

Happycynic · Pro player

RE: GB F14 - Nottingham - 15K

Bladetiger · Pro player

imoen wrote:

Wow, Fischer is the only unseeded player left. Shame more Brits couldn't cause upsets but at least none of the ones who really should have won, lost.

I'm still hoping for an all-Brit final with Marray and Baker (though I wouldn't mind Smith being a finalist either).

Hope you are right, but Jamie was pretty laboured today and faces a very tough opponent tomorrow, Jonny looked to be playing pretty solid, but has another tough one, and Matt Smith isn't convincing me at all this year, not seen anything to suggest he's really turned a corner yet.

Think I'd settle for 1 semi finalist at this stage, but would be great to be wrong.

seagull · Hall of fame

Baker won in 3 sets apparently

johnnylad · Tennis legend

Simon Stadler (Ger) bt Conor Niland (Irl) 6-2 6-2

Bastian Knittel (Ger) bt Matthew Smith (Gbr) 6-1 6-0

Jamie Baker (Gbr) bt Martin Fischer (Aut) 7-6 (10-8) 6-7 (7-5) 6-4

Sheddie · administrator

That's a fantastic win for Jamie Baker

Fischer's probably the form player of the moment having won GB F13 last week without dropping a set [beating Brewer 3 and 0, Burn 1 and 1 and Rushby 1 and 2 aswell as May 2 and 2 this week.]

The 6 points he's gained so far will see him back into the top 300 and up to about 290. It'll help defend some of the points which will be dropping off from Bolton and Edinburgh 2005 in a couple of weeks.

In contrast Jamie's form has been very patchy this week, against Slabba in rd1 he was outhit for the 1st set and in the first two sets he made too many unforced errors. It was his extra nous and variety in the baseline rallies which enabled him to come through in 3 sets. As Robxon says "Slabba has a hugely powerful and elegant game but it is very much up and down the court. He did not seem able to work the angle and bring Jamie in, and then pass him."

In rd2, Jamie again made too many errors, both struggled with the wind but Jamie did serve better and managed to stave off lots of bps on his serve.

Check out his website for detailed reports on his rd1 and rd2 matches: http://www.freewebs.com/jamiebakeronline

He'd played Fischer once before in the juniors and won 0-6, 6-1, 7-5. However, I wasn't really expecting Jamie to win this one as he's not in his best form but from the scoreline he obviously served extremely well and he's one of the most mentally tough and grittiest British players. He's very much like Andy Murray in that respect, he comes through so many tough 3 set matches. I expect that the DC experience and working with Gilbert and Lundgren has given him the belief that he's better than these guys and that's helped him come through the tough matches.

-- Edited by UltimateBoggoFan at 16:39, 2006-09-28

Sheddie · administrator

Bladetiger said that on Tuesday, Tom Rushby missed 5 match points from 6-1 up in the final set tiebreak before losing it 11-9. Ouch !!! That must be incredibly hard to take, it'll take him quite a few days to come to terms with that.

It's a shame that Matt Smith got thrashed so heavily but still a welcome couple of wins for him, his first quarter-final since June and just his 3rd of the year. Is he defending any points this week from last year ?

Hopefully Jonny can win and give us a 2nd semi-finalist, he's got a tough match though against Junaid who reached last week's final and beat Martin Lee. Junaid is also a serve-volleyer. They've played once before earlier this year on indoor hard and Junaid won 6-4, 6-2.

Bladetiger says that he spoke to Jonny and Jonny said that he expected these tournaments in Nottingham to be on indoor hard and it was a real anti-climax to come from Orleans to here. He says that he's now going to play less futures and more challengers.

Sally · Grand Slam Champion

[4] Jonathan Marray d. [6] Rameez Junaid 64 46 76

Sally · Grand Slam Champion

SF:

[1] Simon Stadler GER v [4] Jonathan Marray GBR

[2] Jamie Baker GBR v [3] Bastian Knittel GER

imoen · Admin: Moderator+Tennis Legend

So we could still have an all-Brit final.

Just a shame Matt Smith couldn't reach the semis.

mkkreuk · Admin:Moderator + ATP qualifying

imoen wrote:

So we could still have an all-Brit final.

Or an all German one!

johnnylad · Tennis legend

Doubles semis

Bamford/May bt Lowe/Brewer 63 64

Evans Hilton bt Oswald/Fischer 26 20 ret... (bit of a lucky one again!)

All British final in the doubles

Drew · Sep 28, 2006

Sally wrote:

SF:

[1] Simon Stadler GER v [4] Jonathan Marray GBR

[2] Jamie Baker GBR v [3] Bastian Knittel GER

hoping for an all-brit final...would be good to see the futures guys keeping up with the 'atp' guys!

Apart from Andys loss to tim it has been such a good week...dont really grudge tim the win really...hope he wins

Bladetiger · Pro player

UltimateBoggoFan wrote:

It's a shame that Matt Smith got thrashed so heavily but still a welcome couple of wins for him, his first quarter-final since June and just his 3rd of the year. Is he defending any points this week from last year ?

I believe Matt's defending 12 points from a 10K futures win this week so he'll prbably drop down quite bit.

He's got virtually all his points to defend in the next 2 months, so he'd better get winning or get ready to take a right bath too.

Bladetiger · Pro player

Superb wins for Jamie and Jonny, 2 real tough opponents and a pparently, 2 great games to watch, well done guys, another tough job to do today, but lets hope for an all british final.

By the way, I'm 25 miles from Nottm and it's pissing it down here at the mo.

Sheddie · administrator

Sally wrote:

[4] Jonathan Marray d. [6] Rameez Junaid 64 46 76

Fantastic win for Jonny Marray

clap: Nice bit of revenge for him there against a guy who beat him 4 and 2 indoors earlier this year.

He plays no 1 seed and leftie Simon Stadler who's ranked 255 and has been cruising through the draw, yet to drop more than 5 games in total in a match. He crushed Conor Niland 2 and 2 yesterday. He's had quite a bit of success in challengers this year, reaching 1 semi and 3 quarters. He also won GB F8 on clay and has made 2 futures semis aswell as qualifying for Wimbledon. As those stats show, he's pretty good on all surfaces.

Jamie Baker has a better chance against no 3 seed Knittel who's ranked 387. Knittel was fortunate to come through his opening match, dropping the 2nd set 6-1 against Jan Hasek before winning 6-4 in the 3rd. Last week he got hammered by Tom Burn in rd2. Knittel is a clay-court specialist and he's been on fire on the dirt since May, reaching 6 futures finals and 2 semis from places in Ukraine to Iran. Jamie could do with reaching the final as that would cover his points from Edinburgh 2005 which drop off in 2 weeks time.

What do you reckon Bladetiger ? Have you seen Knittel or Stadler ?