johnnylad wrote:

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ITF mens have updated the entry list.

Mertl withdrew so Josh will be top seed as Greenleaf says.

Slabba, Bammy and Hutch will have made the main draw.

Josh has 71 ranking spots on the 2nd seed and over 100 on the third seed.

Hopefully he can cope with the pressure of the fact that he really should win this week!

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Maybe Jim wasn't able to persuade Bammy to come and so decided that if they weren't going to be able to play doubles together, it wasn't worth bothering just for the singles.
We will see when the main draw is released tomorrow.

Johnnylad, I wouldn't say that Josh "should" win this week, although Mertl's withdrawn there are still several quality players in the field who could cause him problems. I'd be disappointed if he didn't make the latter stages but in particular, Andis Juska and Sergei Bubka will be big threats.

Juska [who incidentally looks like Slabba's twin] has had a superb year. He opened 2006 by winning GB F1 indoors - beating Goodall, Bloomfield and Baker all in straight sets. Overall he's made 4 finals, 4 semis and 3 quarters in futures. He beat Jonny Marray indoors in April and last week in Shrewsbury he qualified and reached rd2 before losing to Navarro Pastor in a 3rd set breaker.

Bubka is 2nd favourite for the title behind Juska in my opinion. In the last couple of weeks he's beaten Bracciali [world no 67 !] in straights and Dick Norman.

Oh yes, I'd forgotten that the county cup had been over the last few days in Jersey. Ross Connolly was probably playing for Yorkshire and Bammy could have been playing for Herts.

Is there anywhere that we can get the results from ?

Ah, that's why May and Searle aren't competing in the Czech Republic, they were both representing Kent in the County Cup. Maybe they'll play the 15K futures over there next week

In the county cup, Jeremy Bates had a great weekend, won all 3 matches ! He beat Searle in straights and and won a close match against Naim Lalji.

Searle and May both won 2/3 matches. May lost to Luke Milligan. Sean Thornley won 1/3 and Dan Smethurst won 3/3

johnnylad wrote:

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If Searle is losing to Bates he can't be that much of a prospect!

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Well, it's a bit unfair to judge on just one match, could have been an off day. Bates can compete with the likes of John McEnroe and McEnroe could definately still make the top 300, possibly top 200. He nearly beat Ancic indoors in the superset. So losing to Bates indoors isn't as disastrous as it may appear.

Searle's had some great results considering that he's only been pro again for the last 5 months, a 15K semi and two futures quarters isn't bad. It's weird that he hasn't competed much at all this autumn though.

Not sure what happened to Slabba ??

Maybe he decided to play county cup for Middlesex at the weekend as the winter version includes singles; or maybe he had flight issues ?

Wonder why Hutchins didn't enter the singles, courts would have suited his serve-volley game.

Josh's round 1 opponent is 19 year old Czech Jan Marek ranked 1016. Marek says he's a clay-courter which is promising. He reached no 25 in the juniors in 2005. Has had a tough time of it in his first year in the seniors - best result was making a sat quarters recently.

Josh shouldn't find things too tough till the quarters where either Klier or 7th seed Tobias Kamke could be tricky

johnnylad wrote:

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real pity the Slabba isn't there.

I still think Josh can/should be as good as Juska and Bubka so its ok to expect him to win!

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Yeah, I dunno what's happened, he needs the points. Hopefully he pops up next week and heads to India

Josh was due to play 3rd on Court 2 today, not before 11.30 GMT, so he should be playing now.