2015 Qualies (Page 2 of 2)

I'm actually fairly confident Ymer will win that one pretty routinely.  The kid's very talented and is only going to get better if he stays healthy, while I feel like Soeda's best stuff is behind him.

-Arvis

Yes, if he stays focused he will win. Only bad nerves can stop him I think.

Djokovic-Bedene underway now, Djokovic is looking sharp, I feel sorry for Bedene.

See, what the crap do I know?

- Aljaz Bedene could have done a little more damage in this tournament had he gotten a better draw.  Alas, he was never going to beat Novak Djokovic and his near-flawless tennis.

- In Elias Ymer's first attempt at a Grand Slam singles match, he came very close to glory.  After winning 2 of the first 3 sets in style, he just didn;t have the experience necessary to topple Soeda.  Ymer lost in 5 painful sets.  But no doubt we'll see this young 18-year-old again.

- Jimmy Wang had no answers whatsoever to the Isner rocket serve and fell in straight sets.

- Laurent Lokoli will have to keep waiting for his first ever Tour-level win.  He managed to take a set off Austria's Haider-Maurer, but that was it.

- Tim Puetz also managed to win a set, but again fell short.  Donald Young is infamous for underachieving, but unfortunately for Puetz, it seems the mercurial American has his act together, for now.

- The Ukraine's Illya Marchenko acquitted himself well against one of the best players in the world, Milos Raonic.  He played the lanky Canadian to two tiebreak sets (losing both) before UEs got the best of him in the 3rd.  The match was much closer than the scoreline indicated.  Look out for Marchenko this year if he keeps serving this well.

- Marius Copil absolutely DOMINATED Pablo Andujar, winning in 3 routine sets.  Copil now has a .500 record on hard courts on the Tour-level.  However, that nice even number is unlikely to stand as his next opponent is 4th-seed Stan Wawrinka.

- For someone who has only ever won one Grand Slam match, Matthias Bachinger sure didn't look like a loser yesterday, beating 27th-seed Pablo Cuevas in straights, including a breadstick in the 3rd!  His next opponent is the very-beatable Jarkko Nieminen.  If Bachinger wins, he'll not only set a personal best Grand Slam result, but net himself a VERY nice little payday before he then gets mercilessly crushed by Wawrinka.

- Jan Hernych folded like Lt. Worf at a Poker table against 30th-seed Santiago Giraldo.  Yes, Hernych is ranked 200th and about 283 years old, but he still should have managed a better effort against a guy with only one real match under his belt this year.

- Kyle Edmund of Great Britain couldn't get past American-Of-The-Moment Steve Johnson, losing in straights.  Edmund is only 20, though, and will likely continue to improve.

- Ons Jabeur couldn't give much trouble to former Top 5 player Vera Zvonareva, losing in straights.  Could Vera trouble her next opponent, Serena?  Probably not.

- Anna Tatishvili broke her LONG Grand Slam losing streak with a routine win over ancient-but-still-beautiful Kimiko Date-Krumm.  Her next opponent will be Timea Bacsinzky, who upset 15th-seed Jankovic.

- Richel Hogenkamp, hoping to face the same Petra Kvitova who played here last year, could barely stay on court for 60 minutes before losing.

Qualifiers Left In Play

Men:
Jurgen Melzer
Tim Smyczek
Matthias Bachinger
Marius Copil

Women:
Anna Tatishvili
Denisa Allertova
Lucie Hradecka
Alexandra Panova

Great match between Smyczek and Nadal.  I thought for sure Tim would pull it off but Rafa's will is out of this world. Hope he gets better soon.

Really impressed by Hradecka. Can't wait to see that match vs Goerges.

We are down only one Qualifier left: Lucie Hradecka, who is going to have a very tough time taking out an in-form Julia Goerges.

Yesterday, Matthias Bachinger lost in straights to an improving Jarkko Nieminen, and Marius Copil succumbed to Stan Wawrinka after playing him to two tiebreak sets.
Anna Tatishvili stole a set from rising Swiss star Timea Baczinsky, but couldn't keep it together for another set.  And Denisa Allertova did pretty much the same against Alize Cornet.

Can Hradecka keep the banner waving for the Qualifiers here in Australia?

-Arvis

Yeah, Copil came in ranked 194th, so he'll definitely jump up a few spots with a 1st-round win in a Slam.  Still, he's going to have to keep playin a lot of Qualifying tournaments before he hits Top 100.  If he can make the main draw of Wimbledon with that serve, look out.

I'm interested to see if his improved play will extend to clay courts as well, which is his worst surface, easily.  Although he has almost no experience on grass, you would think, with that serve, that he could get some wins there.

-Arvis

He's romanian so he's probably been playing most of his early years on clay, I don't know if he's a product of romanian tennis or if he got his education elsewhere though, so it might not be the case.

I saw him against Dimitrov last year, I think it was in Madrid if I remember correctly and he was playing fairly good. I still think he needs a better coach. With a serve like that it should be illegal to be ranked outside of the top-100 as long as you're fit and healthy, which he seem to be. Same thing could be said about frenchman Albano Olivetti, I don't know about his physical status though.

I also saw him play against Berdych in Stockholm a couple of months ago, mosterous serve as usual but Berdych just slaughtered him, he played extremely naive in that match and he basically just served hard but with no finesse and variation.

Sam Groth has cracked the top-100 now so there's no excuses for Copil and Olivetti to not do so also

Do it if you want to and have time. I appreciate it. It's always interesting to see how far the qualifiers can go.

By the way, does anyone know if a player has ever won a grand slam as a qualifier? I can not think of anyone, whats the best result in a grand slam by a qualifier?

Great thread Arvis!  Really enjoyed it!

He may have been a wild card... not sure exactly how things worked then...