On Thursday evening there will be a playoff match for a wild card entry to the forthcoming Tennis Ireland Irish Open at CC<C. Invitations were extended to our top club singles players and the outcome is a match between Owen Kirk and Morgan Lohan. The winner receives a wild card to the qualifiers for the Irish Open. It will be terrific and add considerable interest to our members to have one of our own club members play in the tournament starting this coming weekend. It is sure be a match of top class tennis and the Tennis Committee look forward to seeing our top players supported on Thursday evening.
That gives us two guaranteed through to the main draw (and the others with good chances) with Ben Draper playing Elliott Farmer, and Ed Harwood playing Sizya.
Binding is the man who did the same LTA player/coach course as Olivia Nicholls, I think. The TASS one. With the LTA actually paying to train them as coaches and also pay for them to train, travel and compete half the year.
As an aside, this is the Irish Open according to the ITF site; I understand it is the second oldest tournament in the World, after Wimbledon (maybe Scottish Open is similar age but not played any longer), and has quite a history to it from years ago.
Obviously used to be on grass, nowadays this outdoor carpet is what I would call artificial grass I am guessing?
That gives us two guaranteed through to the main draw (and the others with good chances) with Ben Draper playing Elliott Farmer, and Ed Harwood playing Sizya.
So with two peskies out to Brits, as quite likely, and two Brits still guaranteed, that just leaves young Shaw to bring it on home and get five out of five through to the main draw of the 25k.
Josh Paris, Sizya and Mike Shaw have drawn the short straws, playing the top, third and fourth seeds. There's three all-Brit match-ups. And some other interesting possibilities.
And a huge welcome back to Ryan Storrie - do SO hope his injury worries are properly behind him......
L32: (1) Michal Konecny (CZE) WR 569 (CH = 285 in July 2016) vs Joshua Paris WR 1176 (CH = 983 in July last year)
L32: Conor Berg (USA) WR 1179 (CH = 918 in April last year) vs (6) Luke Johnson WR 817 (CH = 725 in May)
L32: (3) Hugo Voljacques (FRA) WR 712 (= CH) vs (Q) Sizya Kivanda UNR
L32: Paul Cayre (FRA) WR 1288 (CH = 909 in July 2014) vs Joel Cannell WR 1293 (CH = 822 in December 2016)
L32: (5) Evan Hoyt WR 741 (CH = 542 in June 2016) vs Alexis Canter WR 1239 (CH = 1224 in May) L32: George Botezan (ROU) WR 1142 (CH = 1046 in November 2016) vs (Q) Ben Jones UNR
L32: (Q) Michael Shaw UNR vs (4) Stefan Seifert (GER) WR 733 (CH = 228 in April 2012 - he's 33!)
L32: (8) Simon Carr (IRL) WR 896 (CH = 868 in April) vs (Q) Jonathan Binding UNR L32: Sean Hodkin WR 1419 (CH = 1182 last month) vs (Q) Elliott Farmer UNR
L32: Alex Jhun WR 1356 (CH = 1034 in February 2016) vs (WC) Osgar O'Hoisin (IRL) WR 1690 (CH = 1425 in March) L32: (Q) Adam Jones WR 1779 vs (2) Ryan Storrie WR 853 (CH = 626 in April)
Not a particularly strong field for a 25k so hopefully some of our guys can pick up some good points. I am going to stick my neck out (and at risk of jinxing him) go for Evan Hoyt to take the title this week.
L16: (1) Luke Johnson & Hugo Voljacques (FRA) CR 627 (346+281) vs (WC) José María Martín & Osgar O'Hoisin (ESP/IRL) UNR (0+1463) L16: George Botezan & Daniil Zarichanskyy (ROU/UKR) CR 2283 (1585+698) vs Sean Hodkin & Adam Jones UNR
L16: (4) Jonathan Binding & Scott Duncan CR 1821 (1198+623 vs (WC) Sean Collins & Daniel O'Neill (IRL/IRL) UNR
L16: Conor Berg & Niklas Johansson (USA/SWE) UNR (945+0) vs Joe Cooper & Michal Konecny (CZE) UNR (777+0)
L16: Paul Cayre & Giorgio Ricca (FRA/ITA) UNR (0 [but a CH of 962 in November 2014]+936) vs (3) Peter Bothwell (IRL) & Evan Hoyt CR 1092 554+538)
L16: Ben Jones & Joshua Paris CR 2707 (1425+1282) vs Elliott Farmer & Alex Jhun CR 3100 (1585+1515)