Round One

The level of play went up a notch tonight in Madison.

The longest match of the night saw the young Englishmen Ben Coleman upsetting the higher ranked Bart Ravelli in a 73 minute marathon. Two fit guys, a bouncy ball and a hot court makes for a long match. Neither could tuck the ball away so the points went on and on until Ben finally was able to finish it off in four. They might be still playing had it gone to a fifth.

Contrast that match with the Amr Mansi-Fernando Lopez match that went 5 games and only 38 minutes. Some great retrieving, and a lot of attacking shotmaking that were either winners or tins.

Our other qualifiers ran into some stiff opposition. Anthony Graham, an extraordinarily fit player ran into Wade Johnstone which made for a very entertaining match. More than one person in the crowd tonight commented on how quick Wade's hands were and how clinical his shot placement was. It was a fun match to watch, but it seemed like only a matter of time before Johnstone simply wore Graham down with his precision and pace.

Ehimen Ehalen played Bernardo Samper and afterwards told me that he kept trying to slow Samper down, and just was not able to control the pace at all.

The Madison favourite Mark Heather played Chris Gordon and it looked like this match was going to be something special until an unintentional collision left Mark with a dead leg for most of the first and second game. He gamely played on and took the third, but Chris was able to close it out with some exceptional shotmaking and even more exceptional retrieving. He's not the prettiest mover in the game, but his court coverage is quite impressive.

Mike Corren was hampered by a quadriceps problem so was just not able to move well and lost to Legotla Mosope in three.

Peter Creed and Gilly Lane had routine wins over Wildcard Luke Butterworth and Keith Pritchard respectively.