Ok, thanks Count. Hopefully he will get a DE into one of the tournaments but like you said, it's looking unlikely at the moment. When does he need to know by for flights and things?

aparently paradon is a doubt, but even if he pulls out would still need 4 more.

They gave a wild card to Bartolome Salva-Vidal.

Why???

He should be a childhood friend of Nadal because they both hail from Manacor and they were a part of the team of 14 year olds who won World Junior Tennis in 2000 (the same thing we won in 1995 and 2004). So maybe Nadal wanted him as a doubles partner.

-- Edited by Greenleaf at 11:55, 2006-12-29

Jonny has drawn Dick Norman of Belgium, WR 121, who I imagine must be pretty close to being top seeded qualifier .

For details see www.jonnymarray.net

Greenleaf wrote:

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Josh and Auckland face off in round one.

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indeed.

Shame that Boggo isn't playing here but he had a torrid time when he visited India in 2003 on an LTA tour, went home early. That could explain his reluctance to play this tournament and I don't think he's a big fan of the round-robin system which is probably why he's not gone for Adelaide qualies.

Tough draw for Jonny. Two serve-volleyers in action, very unusual sight these days ! Norman is currently ranked 121, in the autumn unusually he didn't do particularly well on the indoor circuit. Was beaten by both Bubka and Huta-Galung in straight sets. Apart from a semi in Orleans, his best results came in the first half of the year when he won matches at both the Aussie Open and Roland Garros, reached the Leon challenger final and made semis in Mexico City and San Luis.

I'm going to be supporting Josh in the all-British clash. 2007 is going to be a very interesting season for him after the form he showed in the latter half of 2006, hopefully he can get close to the top 100. James is mainly concentrating on doubles now, so this match is more important for Josh. They've played 3 times in the past, all indoors, Josh leads 2-1 on head-to-heads. He won 6-4, 6-4 in 2004, 6-3, 3-6, 7-6[3] at the start of 2005 but James won their last match 3-6, 7-6, 7-5 in April 2005.

Does anyone know what the court speed is like in Chennai, is it faster or slower than the courts down under ?

I wonder why Mackin didn't go Maybe it's because he's travelling with Boggo and Mike Raff.

Marray-Norman is on at approx 7am GMT tomorrow and Goodall-Auckland will start at approx 8.30 ! Hopefully the live scoring will be working

I appear to have got the time difference quite wrong !

Norman-Marray has just started

Jonny served first and held to love