What a fab win for Fitzy in the FQR. If you're around, is this your biggest win ever? I thought you'd have trouble getting a set off Charroin, so to beat him in straights is brilliant!

It was probably a relatively good time to get him, because he had a 7-match losing streak between September and November, though those were all in Challenger qualifying (where you'd expect a player around his level to lose more often than not) and he ended the year by getting to the FQR in the Cancun Challenger. More importantly though, this is a top 200 doubles player we're talking about, he's ranked over 500 places higher than Fitzy in singles and around this time last year, he was handing out four bakery products in two matches against Evo and Bam-Bam! (though Evo did take a set in his match)

A pity Fitzy doesn't get a point for that win and didn't get a better R1 draw as a reward (Robert has a CH in the top 200, though that was 4 years ago, and reached the finals of five good standard Futures last year, winning titles in Nottingham and Nevers in the early autumn), but there you go, a massive confidence boost to start the year is always good, points or not!

A pity too that some of our best hopes here have been drawn against each other (not to mention the dire draws for Baker and Skupski), though for a tournament where we only have one of the eight seeds, I guess the draw could have been worse. R1 will certainly give us some pointers as to who is hitting the ground running this year.

Anyway, GB R1 matches again, this time with rankings:

L32: (1) Richard Bloomfield WR 298 v (WC) Colin Fleming WR 647
L32: Dan Cox WR 832 v Pierrick Ysern (FRA) WR 595
L32: (Q) Josh Milton WR 747 v (WC) Neil Pauffley WR 1525 - winner may play (5) Eysseric WR 360
L32: Chris Eaton WR 390 v Dan Evans WR 476 - winner may play (4) Lacko WR 325
L32: (Q) Matthew Illingworth WR 708 v Timo Nieminen (FIN) WR 481
L32: Jamie Baker WR 429 v (8) Frédéric Jeanclaude (FRA) WR 380
L32: (Q) Marcus Willis WR 963 v (Q) Rudy Coco (FRA) WR 799 - winner may play (7) Semjan WR 378
L32: (Q) Dan Smethurst WR 974 v Andre Begemann (GER) WR - winner may play (3) Juska WR 321
L32: (Q) Andrew Fitzpatrick WR 1270 v (6) Stéphane Robert (FRA) WR 367
L32: (WC) Burnham Arlidge WR 876 v Albert Ramos-Vinolas (ESP) WR 448
L32: (WC) Ken Skupski WR 633 v (2) Guillermo Alcaide (ESP) WR 312

Btw it looks like having the qualifying lists is going to make it a bit easier to predict who's got WCs this year (they went to the four highest-ranked players on the entry list who weren't in qualifying), which is good, though I'm a bit surprised to see last week's British Tour winner not get either a main draw WC or be in qualifying. Perhaps he didn't want to travel and is waiting for next week (though he's not on the entry list there either), who knows.

-- Edited by steven at 00:56, 2009-01-13

really gd interview there he seems lyk a really dwn to earth person. also nice to see hes keeping his feet on th floor and realising these futures aren't beneath him and he needs to play them in th right frame of mind.

hopefully only a matter of time before hes back playing challengers consistently.

I was wondering if it was you in the background but didn't want to say it and look (even more of) an idiot if it wasn't. Bet you didn't expect to be on TV beating Charroin!

Good luck for today, you've got nothing to lose.

Ysern does have a 9-2 record against Brits, including winning his last two matches against Slabba, but he lost to Josh in the New Delhi Challenger and to Bam Bam in 2007 and apart from Slabba and Hutch, the other wins were all against Brits who were lower-ranked at the time than Cox is now.

Cox 3-5* 1st
flembo 1 set up and *5-3

Milton won
cox lost 1st set
flem won !

Had a quick chat with fitzy. Looking forward to having a good swing against robert !

Cox *2-0 in the 2nd