Fight, fight, fight, fight

7-6(1) 6-4.

But that was a great effort from him as Groth has played brilliantly in the last month, with wins over Tipsy and Sela.


FD, he plays Ilkley the week after next, where he'll be seeded (barring higher ranked WCs and qualifiers, of course). After that there are two outdoor hard Futures (in Wrexham and London - Cumberland), which he loves playing on.

I was thinking of what sort of a schedule would be best for him after those, based on hard courts. And there are two 10Ks in Greece, two 15Ks in GB, two 15Ks in Spain, three 10Ks in GB, plus Aachen qualies and Jersey that he could do.

If he does all that, is in form and a few draws open up, top 500 by year end is not impossible. But I expect the usual screw ups from some people...

-- Edited by Kung Fu Panda at 17:40, 2008-07-18

Hey guys just got back from good day in Manchester. I will try to do the reports tonight but off out in bit to get weekly dose of booze!

Shame the matches were moved indoors as it did affect the results, but there was a huge downpour about 2ish so prob best.

Slabba would of won if this was outside but the courts really favoured Motomura. Same really goes for Ebden against Beck. Eaton would of put up more of fight against Bloomfield but had nothing there today. It looked more like a match between guy who was recently 651 in world against former 200.

Cox could of won his. He lost concentration and Groth pounced. He showed though that he can play with these fellas. I just really hope he doesnt got back to the juniors and play them tournaments as if he wants to make it he needs to play these tournaments

In the doubles all British interest is extinguished-

Bloomers/Skupski lost 4-6 4-6

Goodall/Ryderstedt lost 7-5 6-7(2) 4-10

Kung Fu Panda wrote:

---

FD, he plays Ilkley the week after next, where he'll be seeded (barring higher ranked WCs and qualifiers, of course). After that there are two outdoor hard Futures (in Wrexham and London - Cumberland), which he loves playing on.

I was thinking of what sort of a schedule would be best for him after those, based on hard courts. And there are two 10Ks in Greece, two 15Ks in GB, two 15Ks in Spain, three 10Ks in GB, plus Aachen qualies and Jersey that he could do.

If he does all that, is in form and a few draws open up, top 500 by year end is not impossible. But I expect the usual screw ups from some people...

-- Edited by Kung Fu Panda at 17:40, 2008-07-18

---

He must have entered that very late, because last time I checked the players list a few hours before the cut-off his name wasn't on it (and it still isn't for the next 2 GB Futures)

Disappointing that both the doubles teams lost as I thought we could get a title out of this, but semi final points will help their rankings a bit.

Just down to Josh and Richard in the singles tomorrow, neither of whom will be favourite to win, so it could well be the end of the British interest

The Telegraph had this article about Chris Eaton at Manchester -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2008/07/17/steato117.xml&posted=true&_requestid=135490

It does put one thing in perspective -
 "One thing is for certain: money is not the prime motivator. He will take home £3,415 if he wins the tournament; not quite the £17,000 that he got for getting through the first round at Wimbledon."
Many people I have spoken with believe that the winner of a 30k event get exactly that! These same people  usually also believe that The LTA pays for coaching and travel - If only they knew how difficult it really is at challenger/futures level to survive as a tennis player! All of those at Manchester this week were pretty good players, all hoping to push up the rankings, travelling great distances, but how many of them even 'broke even'?

What struck me was what a difference media reporting can do, compared to when Richard had very similar results at Wimbledon in 2006 (beating Berlocq, a clay courter in the first round and giving Tommy Haas a good fight in the second) but thanks mainly to Betfair who didnt want to pay out and a press v ery eager for a bit of scandal, was almost treated as a cheat, a suggestion that still gets reminded even this year, who knows what that did to confidence? Was there an inquiry when Eaton beat Pashanski? No, because the bookies had learned a lesson 2 years earlier.

-- Edited by mjd at 05:46, 2008-07-19