I hardly saw any of James' match today ( bit drained from his match yesterday ! ) but he's had a brilliant week, all credit to the guy, especially how he pulled through yesterday.
Certainly seems to have given Tsonga a match today.
He'll hopefully take away good memories and also some lessons . Was great say that he came through against Mannarino in the end in that he can now I'd hope be able to analyse how and why he couldn't convert the tiebreak MPs ( he admitted he got tight ) in a better mind than one just maybe too full of frustration if he'd lost that match.
What is clear is James certainly has the capabilities to get his ranking much higher ( but many will have a best that they don't nearly repeat enough ). His challenge now is to bring more consistency to his play away from the limelight and earn these hard victories and hard won ranking points.
If he doesn't get past Tipsarevic in R1 of Eastbourne ( and that will be very tough ) his ranking will still probably be in the 190s ( after Queens goes on and last year's Eastbourne comes off ).
A very creditable performance in defeat. Lets not forget that Tsonga is one heck of a tennis player and a lot of people have won less games than James did today.
Shame that he didn't take advantage of the break but lets put it into perspective a fantastic week and hopefully he can build on it in the future
So many times in the past we have seen British players against the top guys and they have looked completely lost ''Rabbits in the headlights''. This week James has looked like he is capable of at least giving them a game and has the desire to get there.
-- Edited by Smidster on Saturday 11th of June 2011 06:44:41 PM
I have managed to watch all the matches now on BBC I-player but cannot find Ward v Wawrinka....was this not on a court with a camera?
You are right that it wasn't on a televised court. At the start of the week only centre court was planed to have TV coverage. With the various rain delays and the success of James they put a camera on court 1 as well.
I watched a few games of the first set in his QR1 at Nottingham 2 weeks ago and it isn't an exaggeration to say that when I was in my pomp I would probably have won a few points against James, the standard of the tennis being so poor. But match by match James grew in confidence and whilst he lost to Tursonov he was starting to strike the ball exceptionally well. Clearly he built on that at Queens and then some.
Having never heard of the guy, I voted outside top 200. maybe I was being a bit silly and should of just voted 101 - 200 ( which is what I think for James ).
I see 23% ( of 386 votes ) voted his end of season ranking would be top 50 with another 31% voting 51 - 100.
( OK, maybe not enormous disbelief since I doubt that those voting generally follow tennis to anything like the extent we do, i.e. have a bit of a clue )
Laugh ( and I'd be enormously delighted for him ) if he did end up in the top 50 !!
-- Edited by indiana on Monday 13th of June 2011 09:27:21 PM