It appears arthurs / auckland have won by retirement, when they had a BP in the second set.  I never like to see matches won in this manner and I hope there isn't any serious injury but well done to the guys for hanging in there and taking advantage of the luck thats come their way!

edit: for info, score 3-6 3-2 RET i think

-- Edited by goldenboy at 18:23, 2006-10-25

yes that right, forgor score between seeing scoreboard and posting! James is definitely brit number 1 again for doubles and edging closer to aim of top 70! another win would do it!

Just watching Arthurs v Hernych. Arthurs looks:

Completely out of form
Completely knackered
Injured

He's had the trainer on for ages, will be surprised if he's fit enough to play doubles very well tomorrow.

john wrote:

---

Just watching Arthurs v Hernych. Arthurs looks:

Completely out of form
Completely knackered
Injured

He's had the trainer on for ages, will be surprised if he's fit enough to play doubles very well tomorrow.

---

That's worrying, I was amazed when I saw that Hernych had beaten Arthurs 4 and 4 after Arthurs' rd1 win over Robredo. He'll have had two days rest before the doubles semi, hopefully he can recover.

That was a really fluky win for Aucks and Arthurs, Youhzny and Zimonjic were serving so well in that match before they had to retire. However, it means that James has the 2nd biggest points haul in his career in doubles [I believe that Wimbledon was the biggest] - 110 points which will leapfrog James over Jamie Murray and up to 77 in the rankings so within touching distance of his top 70 end of season aim.
Prize money will be pretty good too as this is a 1 million dollar event.

In the semis they play 2nd seeds Jurgen Melzer and Julian Knowles. They beat Dlouhy and Vik 6-2, 6-4 in the quarters. Melzer is currently ranked 19 in doubles, this year he and Knowle have won titles in Casablanca and Newport and finished runner-up in Vienna, Metz and Houston. They've also made semis of Bucharest, New Haven, Kitzbuhel, Rotterdam, Marseille and Sydney and rd4 of AO and RG.

They won this title last year.

Julian Knowle reached the Wimbledon doubles final in 2004.

Thomas Johansson has just seen off Evil Kunitsyn (who doesn't look that evil btw!)in the St Petersburg semis, so James's doubles SF will be on next and there's live streaming from center court:

mms://mms.metrocom.ru/spbopen

*2-2 James serving - interesting that they had him serving first, that says something about how highly his serve is regarded.

0-30, but neither point was James's fault.

ARthurs and auckland lead 4-3*

Knowle/Melzer yet to face a break point. Lets hope that changes here.