Vancouver 100k challenger [outdoor hard]

admin · Vancouver 100k challenger [outdoor hard]

Jamie will play his rd1 qualifying match here later today, the qualifying draws have not yet been done.

He should be seeded as he's 8th on the alternates list.

Jamie really needs to produce his best tennis here as he's defending 8 points from reaching the final of a 10k futures event in Joplin, USA this time last year. If he doesn't qualify he'll drop out of the top 300. He needs to reach rd2 to defend all 8 points [he'd get 3 points for qualifying].

The weather in Vancouver should be cooler than in the USA which should help Jamie. Richard Bloomfield, Martin Lee, Colin Fleming and Jamie Murray are the other British players competing here this week.

Niall

The qualifying draw has been released on the tournament website.

Jamie has a bye in the first round and will face the winner of Jeremy Salvo vs Justin Kates. Neither player has a world ranking point so they should pose much of a problem for Jamie.

Qualifying Draw

Colin is in the lower half of the draw and he also has a bye in the first round. His opponent in the second round will be Geoffrey Hernandez a young Canadian. Hernandez was born in 1989 and has only reached 1301 in the junior rankings so I would expect Colin to be pretty comfortable.

admin

Yeah, it's an excellent draw from Jamie ! He's seeded to face American veteran Alex Reichel in the qualifying round tomorrow. However, Reichel is ranked over 650 places lower at 942 and has only won 3 matches this year, most recently losing in Cordoba challenger qualifying. Unless, Jamie really struggles with the conditions or gets injured, he should qualify.

Jamie's rd2 match today will start at around 9pm GMT.

There's promised to be live scores on the Vancouver website which sounds good, if they're working today, I will post score updates in this thread and also on the shoutbox.

Welcome to the site Niall, by the way this new site is just for Jamie Baker, Colin Fleming's new site is www.freewebs.com/colinflemingonline Good draw for him aswell, should have a good chance of qualifying as long as he's not suffering too badly from jetlag.

Niall

Good news from Canada.

Jamie Baker bt Justin Kates 6-1 6-1V (I don't know what the V stands for)

Colin Fleming bt Geoff Hernandez 6-3 6-3

Both players are through to the final round of qualifying Very Happy

Nae Backhand

Hi folks,

Just found this site. Good to hear news about the Baker Boy. Any score updates?

NB

admin

Hi Nae Backhand, welcome to the site.

Unfortunately after that emphatic win over Justin Krates, Jamie suffered his worst defeat since last October, going down 7-6[3], 6-4 to American Jeff Williams ranked over 750 places below him at 1051. Last October, Jamie lost in 3 sets in the semis of a 10K futures tournament in Jersey to unranked Brit Simon Harston who was the eventual runner-up.

That's a really bad defeat for Jamie, no idea what happened in that match.

Jamie was first in line for a lucky loser spot and when Mark Philippoussis withdrew a yesterday I thought "oh great, Jamie's in the main draw" but when I checked the lucky loser spot had gone to the 2nd guy in line, American Eric Taino.

This means that Jamie didn't claim it, so he may have flown to Binghampton for the challenger qualifying starting on Sat, straight after his defeat. However, he must have realised that his chances of getting in via a lucky loser place were quite high so I would have thought he would have stayed on if possible for a couple of days just to see.

I wonder whether Jamie has been feeling unwell or something, which would explain the shock loss and why he didn't claim the lucky loser place.

I'm trying to find out and will post the info when I do.

admin

The reason that Jamie didn't get the lucky loser spot was that he was so disgusted with himself for losing in qualies he forgot to sign-up in time for it. Sad

He must be kicking himself right now. Next tournament: Binghampton Challenger qualifying starting on Saturday.

Niall

Nightmare week for Jamie. I know that he used to entering tournaments directly (mostly at futures level) but he has been arround long enough to know that he was likely to get a LL spot if he had just bothered to ask for it. Rolling Eyes

To compound the error Taino won his first round match and wil pick up at least 7 points which is almost the amount Jamie was defending. Sad