Hi,
About 2 months ago I played in a satellite event all around England, this is a 3 week series of tournaments with a masters event for the 24 best players in the 1st three weeks.
I played very well in the 1st week where I qualified and lost 2nd round, however for the next two weeks I was struggling with a shoulder injury. I qualified for the masters and played against a Russian who I had beaten 1st week, and I beat him in two sets. Next up was Ian Flanagan, the leader of the satellite at that point. I played a very good match and beat him 62 in the third set. This gave me 6 points for the four weeks as I lost to Martin Lee in the quarter finals of the masters.
last night I returned from a 6 week trip to the far and middle east.
This trip started out with 4 days of training in Hong Kong in preparation for the first tournament in china. The tournament schedule was; two tournaments in china, one tournament in Korea and then one in Abu Dubai and one in Dubai.
I was in qualifying for all of the tournaments and the trip started off really well as I qualified for the 1st tournament and then made it into to quarter finals, where I lost to the winner, and also made it to the final of the doubles with Andy Kennaugh. My decent form continued into the second week in china where I qualified again and made it to the quarter finals again beating the number 1 seed who is ranked around 350.
These two tournaments gave me 4 points which brought my tally up to 14 points.
The next tournament was in Korea….but as I made it to the quarters in China I couldn’t get to Korea in time for the qualifying so I couldn’t play in the tournament. I spent three days training there before I took my flight to Abu Dubai.
I arrived there nice and early but I needed the time to get used to the pretty intense heat, and level of competition as these two tournaments were $15000, and China were $10000, but I played well again in the tournament and got through qualifying again to play the number 7 seed in the first round. He was very good on the day and played at a higher level than I could compete with.
In the final tournament in Dubai I qualified and had to play another qualifier in the 1st round who is my age and just a bit higher ranked than me, it was a tough match as the first two sets were 67 76 but at 2-2 I went out of the court to get a ball and I twisted my ankle so couldn’t really move and lost 36 in the 3rd set.
Thanks to this trip and my good performance in the satellite’s masters I am now ranked 853, however I have to defend two points in the next month.
My next tournament is in Cardiff a very tough tournament as it is a $25000 and then two $15000 tournaments in Bournemouth and Edinburgh.
Thank you very much for all your support
Chris
Posted by chriseatontennisnews 