Nottingham 25K+H Challenger

Drew · Oct 24, 2006

RE: Nottingham 25K+H Challenger

Sheddie · administrator

He could still do so if he does well in Aachen next week, he'll probably have to have some good results in the super challengers though aswell.

Still, even though he lost today, it's been a great autumn so far - 125K final, rd2 of Bangkok and a quarter-final in Kolding. These are great results and as a result we're expecting Alex to make the latter stages of every challenger. You can't play your best tennis all the time, Lacko is a rising star of the future.

I'm not sure whether the Sluiter match would have affected Alex, we put these results down to mental fragility and chokes but we don't know what happened. Lacko could have been hitting lots of massive return winners in the 3rd set and so maybe on the 2nd serve at 5-5 in the breaker, Alex felt he needed to go for a bigger one.

When Alex lost the break in the first set against Sluiter last week, we said he'd choked but it wasn't that, Sluiter just played a fantastic game, hitting some returns which were just too good.

imoen · Admin: Moderator+Tennis Legend

UBF, will you be getting in contact with Mike Raphael?

Steven, Bladetiger and everyone else who posted scores thank you very much, i was out most of the afternoon, just when the tennis was happening so I'm very grateful I could come back and read through it all.

Sheddie · administrator

I'm hoping to get in contact with Mike, I've sent him an email.

I agree, many thanks to Bladetiger and also to steven for posting the scores. It was good to have such good coverage throughout the day especially for the Boggo match even though I was/am gutted about the result.

Is anyone planning to go tomorrow or any other day this week ?

Bladetiger · Pro player

No problem glad you appreciated it, might be there thursday, depending on Who is going to be there.

One thing i got wrong in the excitement was the sequence of serves in the Boggo tie break, it should have been LAcko serving first :

1-0*

2-0* mb Lacko

*2-1

*3-1

3-2* m/b Boggo

3-3*

*4-3 m/b Lacko

*4-4 m/b Boggo

5-4*

5-5*

*6-5 Double fault Boggo, m/b Lacko

7-5

The problem (to my mind particularly) was Boggo's crosscourt backhand which he normally hits really well, he kept pulling it and seemed to be running round his backhand to hit forehands towards the end.

Lacko was no great shakes, early on Boggo (despite not breaking) looking much the better player, but he just didnt play well, it just didnt come off the racket for him.

Really he was a bit lucky to win the first set getting a break with his first chance for a few points at 30-40 and then seemed very flat in the second,. From serving at 3-3 he got broken, Lacko held to love and then got broken again 6-3, hence Lacko was serving first in the decider.

He saved three break points at thstart of the third and hung in there despite not playing well, but a crucial double fault cost him. Atthe end Mike was really disappointed and annoyed that Boggo hadnt won in straights, he really seemed to think it was a very unnecessary loss.

Other news: MAckin looked great, and Mike seems to have very high hopes for him.

Johnny played pretty good, neither player had a break point the entire match exceot for Carlsen's one at 30-40 5-6 of the first set. Jonny got to deuce a couple of times, and really it was down to a couple of points.

Jonny is now playing at Nottingham regularly and is training with Mark Hilton and Daniel Evans and says that he is really enjoying it, and it has co-incided with his better form, he's pretty positive.

Didnt see loads of Hewitt but think it was a valuable lesson for him. at 1-0 in the second he got to 15-40 on the Greek's serve and the Greek served 3 aces, so I heard him talking about that, but he hits the ball quite sweetly and isnt afraid to come into the net, so can only be positive experience.

Ross Hutchins played pretty good against a big powerful opoponent, and Josh hit some good shots and looked pretty good against Stoppini, I expect him to beat Lacko.

Had a decent chat with Bloomers, he seems pretty chipper and is looking forward to tomorrow, think that's everyone but if Ive missed anyone let me know.

Oh Delgy, did Ok, not quite good enough, i think he's mainly focusing on doubles now.

jezzauk · Lower Club Player

I'm going to try my hardest to be there at lunchtime, will only be for about 40mins or so, but is usually worth it. I don't have a mobile though so i can't promise to text any scores to anyone!

Bladetiger · Pro player

Scores so far:

(1) K Pless (DEN bt (LL) P Cervanak (SVK) 64 76 (4)
(4) A Waske (GER) bt F Prpic (SWE) 75 64
(3) K Economides (GRE) bt P Snobel (CZE) 57 63 64

Reckon these scores will be relevant to Boggo's position if not anything else.

Bladetiger · Pro player

Drew wrote:

We all have bad days at the office....a real bad one for Boggo...will he ever break the top 100.....hopefully during 2007 !

Absolutely Drew, only thing is that he's got 155 points to defend in the next few weeks in tennis terms and he aint going to play every week, this is the point I was trying to make on this and MTF, you cant expect players to just turn up and win Challenger after Challenger, the other players are too good for them to be top dog every week, and yet he has 3 challenger wins to defend in quite a short space of time.

Sheddie · administrator

Thanks for the reports Bladetiger, only one result we don't have. The Bladetiger v Bladetiger junior exhibition match, steven and I are eagerly anticipating the result. My money was on Bladetiger junior, was I right ?

jezzauk · Lower Club Player

Josh just lost, don't know the full score, but it was 2sets to 1, he took the middle 6-4, lost the last 6-3.

Bladetiger · Pro player

jezzauk wrote:

Josh just lost, don't know the full score, but it was 2sets to 1, he took the middle 6-4, lost the last 6-3.

Thanks for letting us know, this Lacko is seriously getting on my nerves!

What was the latest Bloomfield score?

Sheddie · administrator

Bladetiger wrote:

Drew wrote:

We all have bad days at the office....a real bad one for Boggo...will he ever break the top 100.....hopefully during 2007 !

Absolutely Drew, only thing is that he's got 155 points to defend in the next few weeks in tennis terms and he aint going to play every week, this is the point I was trying to make on this and MTF, you cant expect players to just turn up and win Challenger after Challenger, the other players are too good for them to be top dog every week, and yet he has 3 challenger wins to defend in quite a short space of time.

155 pts ??? I thought it was only about 70 with the Sunderland challenger win + a few pts from reaching rd2 of Eckental and Helsinki.

He's going to play every week from now till Shrewsbury finishes. In 2007, he's got 3 weeks before his Wrexham pts come off in which he's hoping to play ATPs Chennai and Sydney and then the Aussie Open.

Sheddie · administrator

jezzauk wrote:

Josh just lost, don't know the full score, but it was 2sets to 1, he took the middle 6-4, lost the last 6-3.

I'm going to phone for some updates in a sec. Really gutted that Lacko won again, he seems to have a knack of winning close 3 setters at the moment. A quarter-final would have put Josh further into the top 250. Hopefully King Mac can get past Vacek and then give Lacko a lickin' in the quarters.

mkkreuk · Admin:Moderator + ATP qualifying

UltimateBoggoFan wrote:

Bladetiger wrote:

Drew wrote:

We all have bad days at the office....a real bad one for Boggo...will he ever break the top 100.....hopefully during 2007 !

Absolutely Drew, only thing is that he's got 155 points to defend in the next few weeks in tennis terms and he aint going to play every week, this is the point I was trying to make on this and MTF, you cant expect players to just turn up and win Challenger after Challenger, the other players are too good for them to be top dog every week, and yet he has 3 challenger wins to defend in quite a short space of time.

155 pts ??? I thought it was only about 70 with the Sunderland challenger win + a few pts from reaching rd2 of Eckental and Helsinki.

He's going to play every week from now till Shrewsbury finishes. In 2007, he's got 3 weeks before his Wrexham pts come off in which he's hoping to play ATPs Chennai and Sydney and then the Aussie Open.

he's got 65 points to defend until the end of the year. thats it as far as i can tell and then 50 pts in january (for winning Wrexham)

Sheddie · administrator

He could do with making the semis next week in Aachen, that would be really handy since the next two super challengers will be so tough. They really ought to make Bratislava an ATP, it's stronger than Mumbai. Hrbaty is almost certain to ask for a wildcard since it's like the Wimbledon of Slovakia so that'll make the total number of top 100 players, 16.

Bloomers - Mertl is still in the 1st set and Mackin leads 2-1 on serve v Vacek.