Yen-Hsun Lu

Yen-Hsun Lu becomes the Challenger GOAT

The man from Taiwan claimed another three Challenger titles to take his career total to 18, surpassing the semi-retired Takao Suzuki’s haul of 16.

His cause was helped by his schedule, consistently opting to play weak Challengers in Asia instead of ATP events and he was top seed (by a large margin) in all three victories.

The Ratiwatana twins do the same

If Lu is the Roger Federer of the Challenger circuit then Sanchai and Sonchat Ratiwatana are the Bryans.

The Thai twins won eight titles in 2012 to take their career total to 30, more than double the amount of the team in second place on the all-time list (Bobby Reynolds and Rajeev Ram with 14).

Individually, they both still have a way to go to catch Rik De Voest, who tasted victory in three Challenger doubles titles in 2012 and now has a career tally of 37.

Maximilian Abel returns to the tour

He didn’t win ATP Comeback Player of the Year but if you were going to write a film script about any returning player, you’d pick Abel.

A top-10 junior who lost to Andy Roddick in the 1999 Orange Bowl final, his already spiraling career came to a halt when he tested positive for cocaine in Metz in 2007 and was suspended for three years.

That was the least of his legal troubles as it emerged he’d been fuelling his addiction and travel expenses with stolen credit cards. He was sentenced to three years prison in 2009 on 135 counts of fraud.

Payments to hookers and threats on his life from Chechen mafioso types while in custody are some of the more lurid details of the tale.

In July this year the 30-year-old made his return to tour in Futures qualifying and finishes the year ranked 1091.

Richard Gasquet hits a backhand overhead passing shot winner from 2 metres behind the baseline

On set point in the first set of the bronze medal match at the Olympics. Draconian International Olympic Committee copyright enforcement meant it hasn’t received the attention it deserved.

In fact I’ll probably be bundled in to the back of the van and water-boarded somewhere just for making a gif of it so enjoy it while you can.

(Geographically restricted YouTube video linked in title)

Brian Baker completes the set

Brian Baker completed a unique set in 2012 by recording main draw victories at Futures, Challenger, 250, 500, Masters and Slam level.

Jerzy Janowicz came close to achieving the same feat, lacking only a win at 500 level from his personal collection.

Dan King-Turner plays an epic point and shares it with the world

Not sure what I prefer about this. The shot itself or the fact that the player was so insistent his moment of genius drew some attention that he uploaded it to YouTube himself.

Denis Zivkovic wins the title in Leon

Zivkovic was ranked 713 and had never won a main draw match at Challenger level when he entered qualifying at the 30k event in San Potosi, Mexico in April.

He broke new ground by reaching the last eight and a continued his momentum in Leon the following week, again going through qualies. He went all the way to the final where he beat Rajeev Ram in straight sets.

It was a fortnight that came completely out of the blue, the player going 4-11 in main draws for the remainder of the year.

Cat interrupts play in Szczecin

Aka a gratuitous cat gif. You people can’t get enough of cat gifs. What the hell is wrong with you? Michal Przysiezny doesn’t look so amused.

Alejando Falla proves he’s only human

In his 674^th match as a professional, Alejando Falla was forced to retire for the very first time. A virus finally put paid the Colombian’s remarkable streak during the Cali Challenger.

Matteo Viola wins after trailing 0-5 0-40 in the third set

Viola won five matches from match point down in 2012 but the most impressive was his comeback against Dusan Lajovic in the first round of Australian Open qualifiers where he saved a grand total of 9 in an unlikely 8-6 third set victory.  Lajovic still wakes up in a cold sweat thinking about it.

Philip Oswald hits 38 aces against Ti Chen…

…and loses the match.

Players breaking national records

Ze Zhang became the highest ever ranked Chinese man when he reached 154, beating the mark of 176 set by Bing Pan in May 1995.

Malek Jaziri seemingly breaks a Tunisian record every time he steps on court. In 2012 he achieved a high rank of 69 and in St Petersburg became the first from the North African country to reach an ATP semi-final.

Grega Zemlja became the first Slovene to reach the third round of a slam at the US Open and first to reach an ATP final in Vienna (where he lost to Del Potro).  It was a fine year for Slovenian tennis overall, the small Balkan nation finishing with three players in the top 100 (Aljaz Bedene and Blaz Kavcic were the others).

David Savic

Few tennis fans had heard of David Savic before he was banned for life on corruption charges at a hearing in London last September.

Given that he operated mainly on the Futures tour and had a career high of 393, it’s not surprising. He was barely a household name in his own house.

Initial details were sketchy. Savic received a life ban and a $100,000 fine for “contriving or attempting to contrive the outcome of an event”. He claimed he’d been set up by a “current top player” who was reported to be a friend from his junior days.

Last month The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) upheld the Serb’s life ban but quashed the fine. With the release of the case file, some fascinating details have emerged. 

The redacted CAS document protects the name of the main witness against Savic revealing only that he was an ATP player who was in Belgrade in 2009 as well as Beijing and Moscow in 2010.

I will therefore afford him the same level of anonymity and refer to him only as The Cypriot Number One (who, just to be clear from the offset, is not implicated in any wrongdoing whatsoever).

Game over indeed

The timeline of the main events are as follows:

April 2009: Savic, who was in the qualifying draw at the Serbian Open, and The Cypriot Number One meet in Belgrade and swap phone numbers.

October 2010: In a Beijing hotel room, The Cypriot Number One receives a call on his cell phone from the number Savic had given him. He doesn’t answer but later takes a call on his hotel phone from someone he believes to be Savic.

They continue their conversation on Skype, all conversations taking place in English.

Savic then offers The Cypriot Number One $30,000 to drop the first set of his first round match and alleges that he will progress to the next round anyway as his opponent (let’s call him The Ukrainian Number One, or Aleksandr Dolgopolov for short) will agree to lose the next two sets.

The Cypriot Number One turns the offer down and reports it to the Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU) (as he is required to do under the sport’s anti-corruption code).

Two weeks later in Moscow, The Cypriot Number One receives an SMS that reads. “I have the same question for u like 2 weeks ago … Did u change your mind? David”.

(Interestingly the Cypriot Number One also faced Dolgopolov at the tournament in Moscow though it is not clear if his is the match in question on this occasion)

The Cypriot Number One meets TIU officer Jeff Rees who is staying in the same Moscow hotel. He shows him the SMS and upon advice replies with a simple “No”.

December 21, 2010: Savic is informed of the case against him when his telephone records and bank details are requested via email.

February 15, 2011: Savic is interviewed by two TIU investigators and denies the allegations against him.

March 22, 2011: In Miami, two parties related to the case are interviewed by TIU officers and deny any knowledge of attempts by Savic or anyone else to fix matches.

(This paragraph is heavily redacted but in context it is more than likely that Dolgopolov is one of the people in question. If so, it wasn’t the first time he’d come under the TIU’s radar. The previous January he confirmed he had received a letter from them.)

May 24, 2011: Savic is officially charged with corruption offences via email.

September 12 , 2011: Savic and the TIU representatives present their cases to Professor Richard H. McLaren, the Anti-Corruption Hearing Officer, in London.

September 30, 2011: McLaren finds Savic guilty and issues him with a life ban and $100,000 fine.

October 27, 2011: Savic appeals the decision to CAS.

March 29. 2012: Savic attends a CAS hearing In Lausanne, Switzerland. The Cypriot Number One gives evidence via video-link.

September 5, 2012: CAS upholds a life ban for David Savic.

So there you have it. What we know for certain is that David Savic has been banned for life.

We also know the player that reported him to the TIU, thanks to the suspiciously shoddy redaction of the case file.

We also know that a top 20 player who has been involved in several suspicious matches in the past has once again had his name associated with a scandal.

We already knew he’d received a letter from the TIU and it now seems certain he has been interviewed on the subject too.

There is a whole lot we don’t know.

Was David Savic acting alone (which seems unlikely) or was he a go between for someone else, possibly an organised crime syndicate?

Did the TIU liaise with any law-enforcement agencies to see if there was a criminal case to answer? (Bear in mind that people have been jailed for similar offences in both the UK and Germany).

Was Savic offered a reduced sentence in exchange for assistance? There is no reference to this in the file.

If not then why not? Was the TIU content to fry a small fish rather than expose a high profile player?

As of now, two players have been banned for life under the sport’s anti-corruption code (Daniel Koellerer being the other).

Both were convicted of approaching other players, rather than fixing their own matches, and both were convicted largely on the testimony of fellow pros.

Significantly, both were obscure players meaning little media coverage and associated damage to the sport’s reputation.

Neither the Koellerer nor Savic cases have brought the match-fixing issue into the spotlight in the same way the Nikolay Davydenko case did (a storm the tennis authorities had no control over other than damage limitation).

The counter-argument to the small fish theory is that higher profile players have been in fact been investigated

Furthermore, Janko Tipsarevic implied that it was the TIU themselves who leaked the news when his bank details and phone records were requested following his match against Horacio Zeballos in Moscow in 2010.

It is most likely that there has simply been no hard evidence against any bigger names and with Savic and Koellerer both pleading not guilty, nobody willing to testify against them.

Regardless of the unanswered questions, the bottom line is that two players who were actively seeking to corrupt the sport have been banned from it for life.

Koellerer was particularly flagrant, with a trail of players testifying against him but it’s a little easier to have sympathy for Savic given the circumstances and the severity of the ban when compared to some doping cases.

He took a chance in approaching an old friend to throw a set of tennis, probably assuming their personal relationship would protect him from being exposed.

As it happens, it didn’t and he’s been left to pay a very high price.

David Savic gambled and David Savic lost.

We can hope that it is enough to serve a warning for others but given that the masterminds at the heart of the corruption are almost certainly still at large, the issue is unlikely to vanish from the sport.

Roger Federer and Julien Benneteau exit Centre Court after their five set third round battle

Self-parody with John McEnroe 

It seems I wasn’t alone when I was irritated by media descriptions of Lukas Rosol as an “unknown” and a “nobody”, amongst other disparaging terms.

John McEnroe was also disgusted by his colleagues in the mainstream media.

In typical J-Mac fashion, he unleashed a subtle but biting lampoon of the situation during Roger Federer’s five set battle with Julien Benneteau by describing the Frenchman as, yes that’s right, “an unknown”.

It was genius.

Of course this is bollocks. In his role as an analyst, McEnroe has his strengths but he’s about as subtle as he was in his dealings with chair umpires during his playing days.

There was no trace of irony in his description of Benneteau. It was tennis commentary reaching the realms of self-parody.

Whatever about Rosol, the description of a top 32 player as an unknown is quite clearly absurd.

Unknown to who exactly? Certainly not to Roger Federer, who lost to the Frenchman in their previous encounter at the Paris Masters in 2009 and definitely not to anyone who watches the sport for more than two weeks a year.

Quite simply, the lack of knowledge about the tour as a whole by some of its most prominent voices would not be acceptable in any other sport.

Jeff Sackmann, author of the Heavy Topspin blog put that point across superbly when he wrote:

“In any major team sport, a top-100 player is among the top five on his team; number 65 might make an all-star team.”

A commenter on my previous blog post contrasted the laziness of several leading tennis analysts to the intricate knowledge of Brazilian commentary on the NFL, despite it being very much a minority sport in that country.

The people paid to write and comment about tennis should learn to adopt similar standards.

The cramping rule clarified

Not to pick on John McEnroe again, but when Benneteau received massages on his cramping thighs at two separate changes of ends in the fifth set, the highest paid commentator in tennis expressed his hope that someone would come out and clarify the rule.

It’s there in black and white in both the ATP and ITF rulebooks.

Since the beginning of the 2010 season, cramp is not considered an injury and therefore a three minute medical time-out is not an option for suffering players.

However, they are permitted to receive treatment for cramp within the 90 seconds allowed for change of ends and in the two minute break at the end of a set.

The ATP rulebook allows a maximum of two such treatments in a match while the ITF rules (which govern the slams) allow for a total of three.

(Disclosure: I was not fully aware of the status of change-over rub-downs – but then nobody is paying me to do this.)

If a player can’t continue until a change of ends due to cramping then they forfeit the necessary points and games to get there while the umpire (in conjunction with the tournament referee) has the power to issue a code violation for Unsportsmanlike Conduct if he feels “gamesmanship is involved”.

The ITF has a further caveat that allows for additional treatment of cramping if the trainer decides that it is “a manifestation of heat illness”.

So there you go. Knowledge of the rules seems to be about as strong as that of lower ranked players.

But whatever the rights and wrongs of said rule, the treatment received by Julien Benneteau was well within it.

Hope that clarifies things, Johnny.

Youzhny’s lucky number seven

With his four set win against Janko Tipsarevic, Mikhail Youzhny booked his place in the fourth round of Wimbledon for the seventh time. He’s never been any further.

While an 0-6 record in last 16 matches might look abysmal, it’s quite forgivable when you consider the draws the Russian has had.

In his first appearance back in 2001, Youzhny lost to eventual runner-up Pat Rafter. The following year he fell to champion Lleyton Hewitt. Since then he has lost to Fernando Gonzalez (2005), Rafael Nadal (2007, 2008) and Roger Federer (2011).

The 2007 defeat to Nadal was particularly unlucky given that he was in a great position to follow up his 2006 US Open victory over the Spaniard before injuring his back while leading two sets to love.

It would be a shame if such a stylish grass court player never reached the last eight at Wimbledon and with Denis Istomin standing between him and that elusive breakthrough, he’ll never get a better chance.

Lukas Rosol

Cool head Luke

Lukas Rosol’s five set victory against Rafael Nadal was one of those matches that leaves you frantically searching for superlatives.

As far as upsets go, it’s arguably the biggest of the Open Era with only George Bastl’s victory over Pete Sampras at the same stage at the same event in 2002 coming close in the last decade.

Pre-match prices on the Czech peaked as high as 79, which implies a 1.26% chance of victory.

It was a victory that he had to earn the hard way. Nadal finished with a winner to unforced error ratio of 42:16 which is completely unprecedented in a losing performance.

In the fifth set there just wasn’t a whole lot the Spaniard could do in the face of a barrage of power hitting from the Czech. Rosol fired a ludicrous 20 winners, which included three aces and a stunning off forehand in closing out the victory to love.

This wasn’t your standard, journeyman’s day in the sun. Rosol was hitting regularly hitting winners in the 100mph range on both the forehand and backhand side. There are very few players capable of doing that, even during a once in a lifetime performance.

It was ball-bashing as an art form.

There were no signs of nerves whatsoever and the Czech’s ability to keep a cool head in the face of some rather dubious tactics from his opponent was even more impressive than his level of play.

Nadal bumped him at a change of ends (it wasn’t exactly GBH) and complained to the umpire about his movement and the noise of his breathing while waiting to return serve.  The usual go-slow on big points was there too.

It was all to no avail as Rosol remained completely unfazed. It was a truly phenomenal performance by a talented but unheralded player.

Known unknowns

While far from a household name, Rosol isn’t exactly the mystery, unknown or nobody suggested by people who are paid to cover the sport.

Just over a year ago he reached the last 32 at the French Open, beating Jurgen Melzer in an absurd performance of mindless hitting that saw him reach triple figures in unforced errors.

The last 32 of a recent slam is a significant milestone worth remembering so this isn’t a case of me getting on some sort of tennis hipster “I liked him before he was famous” high horse.

If we accept that he was a complete unknown, then he really shouldn’t have been. Rather than disparaging them, the tennis media should be able to do a better job of increasing awareness of lower ranked players, especially those with the raw (if hitherto misdirected) talent of Lukas Rosol.

You can be assured that the 65^th best basketball player, cricketer or footballer (of both the American and Association varieties) is much more widely recognised among fans of those particular sports.

It isn’t all down to the traditional media or indeed the ATP. Players now have the means to interact directly with fans if they want to with Amer Delic and Sergiy Stakhovsky probably the best examples of those that are more widely recognised than their results might otherwise merit thanks to fully embracing Twitter.

Misguided Murray mania

Within minutes of Nadal biting the dust, Andy Murray started trending worldwide on Twitter (proper trending – I have that “tailored” shit switched off).

The reason being that Nadal was in Murray’s half of the draw and therefore the Scot’s path to the final got that bit easier.

People just can’t help themselves. Much was written of Murray’s “nightmare” draw before the tournament and for the time being little has changed.

Next up he faces Marcos Baghdatis, a perennial disappointment but a player who brings his best on the biggest stage, gave Novak Djokovic his toughest match here last year and who generally enjoys the match-up with Murray.

Milos Raonic, Juan Martin Del Potro and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga are still alive and well too. Try and keep a lid on the hype for now. For Murray’s sake more than anything.

Going the distance with Viktor Troicki

The Serb’s second round victory against Martin Klizan was his seventh consecutive slam match that has gone the distance.

I haven’t seen it confirmed but I’m almost certain that it obliterates whatever the previous record was. (The best my half-arsed research could turn up was a four-match streak for all-time five-set king Nicolas Lapentti).

Troicki’s third round encounter with Juan Monaco has five-setter written all over it as well.

The equal pay endgame

The equal pay debate bores me so I thought I might as well come up with a way of settling it forever.

If the WTA wants to increase the standard of play and see its revenue levels go through the roof then there is one simple step it can take: have the entire tour played on indoor grass.

Admittedly I’m basing this theory on a sample size of two matches but Tamira Paszek’s victory over Caroline Wozniacki was the best ladies’ match I’ve seen since Sabine Lisicki edged out Na Li in that thriller under the Centre Court roof last year.

When all matches are played to this standard (and by using the mathematically sound method of extrapolation, I can prove they certainly would be), criticism of equal pay will vanish.

Try as I might, I can’t think of a single logistical obstacle to this proposition. I just hope someone in the organisation has the vision and guts to run with it.

Potito Starace contemplates the moral dilemma (for about two seconds)

Easy money

It was another productive grass season for Potito Starace. Two matches, two retirements, a total of 16 games played.

His reward? A mere €3,870 for his first round defeat to Flavio Cipolla in Rosmalen and then £14,500 for his retirement at 2-6 0-2 today against Ryan Sweeting.

Filippo Volandri won’t be telling the grandkids about his 2012 grass court swing either with his retirement loss against Jeremy Chardy today his lone outing.

Perhaps the Italians celebrated their penalty shoot-out victory over England together given that they went 1-5 in men’s singles today.

Overall, there were four retirements on the men’s side with Sergiy Stakhovsky and Paul-Henri Mathieu the other players to call it quits.

When you consider the five first round retirements at Roland Garros you have to wonder if this is the unwanted consequence of increased prize money for early losers.

For most players, the lure of a fat paycheque is going to outweigh any nebulous moral considerations of respect for the tournament or fairness to fellow pros.

The situation sparked some comments on twitter with a clearly annoyed Rajeev Ram questioning the lucky loser rule, while new ATP Board electee Sergiy Stakhovsky took exception to a tweet from former member Yves Allegro.

While injured players turning up to collect cheques leaves a sour taste, it’s difficult to see what the authorities can do to stop it.

Self-Flagellation with Michael Youzhny

It wasn’t anywhere near as spectacular as his head-smashing antics against Nicolas Almagro in Miami four years ago but it was pretty grimace-inducing nonetheless.

Trailing by a set and 3-1 to Donald Young, the endearingly batshit Russian once again attacked himself with his racquet, this time his sternum bearing the brunt the trauma.

Just as it did four years ago, it seemed to spark him into life. He reeled off six games in a row to take control of the match and never looked back.

The genius of it is that unlike say, smashing your racquet or kicking a line judge, this method of release remains ungoverned by the statute book.

Racquet abuse? Warning. Ball abuse? Warning.

Self-abuse? Pain and a possible future psychiatric evaluation, but seemingly no intervention from the umpire.

It can only be a matter of time before it becomes standard practice.

Timely reminders with Ernests Gulbis

Despite his win over Tomas Berdych today, I won’t be rejoining the Ernie bandwagon any time soon. I’ve completely given up hope that he’ll ever be a top ten player or even get close again.

Still, it was nice to be reminded of why people hyped him in the first place because watching him recently I’d begun to wonder if he was ever really that good or if he was just another streaky ballbasher hyped up beyond all recognition by those desperate to fill the Marat Safin-shaped void in their lives.

His performance against Berdych showed that much of the hype was justified and there is some supreme talent there, but ask me again when he loses to Jerzy Janowicz on court 46 on Wednesday.

The fallen mental giant

He may have lost six matches from match point up in 2011 but John Isner put himself firmly back in the mental giant category this year with his epic victory against David Nalbandian in Australia and Davis Cup heroics in Switzerland.

However the last two slams have seen a worrying decline. First there was the loss from two sets up to Paul-Henri Mathieu at Roland Garros where he fought gamely in a marathon fifth set but capitulated quite meekly at the end.

It was a similar story against Alejandro Falla today where he blew a match point in the fourth set tiebreak.

He looked second best for much of the fifth set but considering how hard he seemed to be fighting to stay in the match, the game he played when serving at *5-6 beggared belief.

He rolled first serves in, barely ran when those serves came back and if he did get to the ball he carelessly lashed at it, missing by metres.

He also rushed between points, looking like he wanted to get off the court as quickly as possible. It looked like a tank.

It was a relatively short match so his stamina shouldn’t have been an issue and afterwards he blamed his mental state.

“I’m my own worst enemy out there. It’s all mental for me, and it’s pretty poor on my part.”

For a player whose mental strength has generally been his defining characteristic, it’s something he’ll need to sort out in a hurry.

Comeback kid Brian Baker

No wildcard, no problem

Brian Baker was denied a main draw wildcard but breezed through qualifying to secure his first Wimbledon appearance in seven years with a 5-7 6-2 6-1 6-2 win against Maxime Teixeira.

The AELTC decision now looks like a blessing in disguise.

Baker suffered a disappointing loss to Evgeny Korolev in Queen’s qualifying which wasn’t really surprising given it was his first match on grass since his opening round retirement defeat to Novak Djokovic at Wimbledon qualifying in 2005.

An extra three matches to get to grips with the surface will have done him the world of good.

Jimmy Wang

While the Baker story may blow all other tennis comebacks out of the water, Yeu-Tzuoo “Jimmy” Wang is another 27-year-old currently rebuilding his career after a long absence.

The man from Taiwan followed up his win against Teymuraz Gabashvili to beat Roberto Bautista-Agut in straight sets and secure his first appearance at a slam main draw since qualifying for Wimbledon in 2007.

Like Baker, Wang was among the best juniors in the world but despite peaking at #85 as a 21-year-old, his pro career never took off and looked to be all over when a serious wrist problem in 2008 kept him out of the sport for the best part of two years.

He returned to the tour at the end of 2010 and has slowly worked his way back to the top 200 since then.  A place in the Wimbledon main draw is just reward for his efforts.

No Miracle this time

He almost did it again.

Matteo Viola, the man who has won five matches from match points down this year, produced another remarkable comeback to force a fifth set against Florent Serra but eventually came up just short.

Viola saved a total of nine match points in fourth set before taking it 10-8 in the tiebreak on his first set point.

He had a break point for a 3-1 lead in fifth but Serra held on, broke serve at 4-4 before serving it out comfortably to 15.

Another impressive fight from the 24-year-old Italian but not quite enough this time.

The Lucky Loser

The chances are the lucky loser draw has already been made, but there’s no official announcement so who knows.

By my reckoning, the four players in the hat to take the main draw place vacated by Gael Monfils are Rajeev Ram, Wayne Odesnik, Roberto Bautista-Agut and Jonathan Dasnieres de Veigy.

Given the apparent lack of transparency surrounding the process, cynics might suggest that Odesnik’s chances of getting picked are considerably less than the 25% implied by mathematics.

We’ll have to wait and see.

Matteo Viola

The return of Miracle Matteo

I first wrote about Matteo Viola at the Australian Open. You can read the details of his ridiculous comebacks here but the short version is he won his first two qualifying matches from a total of 11 match points down and qualified for the main draw after trailing Rik De Voest by a set and a break.

Well he’s at it again. Today he trailed Tim Smyczek *0-3 in the third set and saved a match point on serve at *5-6 30-40 before eventually coming through 8-6.

In his first match, he beat Alexander Kudryavtsev 3-6 7-6(3) 6-2 so it’s highly probable that he came with a whisker of defeat there too (I’m not sure if match points were involved).

When you add the fact that Viola has won a further two matches from match points down this year (Attila Balazs in Zagreb qualies, Rogerio Dutra da Silva at the Monza Challenger) the picture of a quite incredible fighter emerges.

What makes it all the more remarkable is that Viola makes compatriot Filippo Volandri look like a big server, so it’s clear that he’s not bailing himself out with bombs.

That’s at least five matches won from match points down in less than six months. It is almost certainly a record of some kind.

For some perspective, it’s  more than the likes of Andy Murray (4), Gilles Simon (3), Richard Gasquet (3), Janko Tipsarevic (3), Viktor Troicki (2) and Rainer Schuettler (!) (4) have won in their entire careers on the main tour.

(Check out an interesting collection of match point stats here.)

British blues

Nine British players were awarded wildcards into the qualifying draw, including David Rice and Chris Eaton who earned theirs by reaching the final of a play-off tournament.

The lone round two survivors both went close but ultimately came up short with Eaton losing in two tiebreaks to top seed Jurgen Zopp and Kyle Edmund going down to Marcel Felder having lead 6-0 *2-1.

There will now be even more pressure on main-draw wildcards James Ward, Jamie Baker and Oli Golding to make an impression at SW19 ahead of the inevitable post-tournament British tennis autopsy.

Breaking new ground

The following players have already surpassed their previous career best results at a slam by reaching the final qualifying round:

Adrian Menendez-Maceiras, Inigo Cervantes, Peter Torebko, Maxime Authom, Erik Chvojka, Marcel Felder and Farrukh Dustov.

Felder and Dustov are experienced Davis Cup players with Uruguay and Uzbekistan respectively but for the others the final qualifying round will be their first official best of five matches as pros.

Arnaud Clement: say bye to the bandanas

Au revoir Arnaud

Arnaud Clement’s singles career came to an end in rather low-key circumstances with a narrow defeat to big-serving compatriot Kenny de Schepper today in Roehampton.

Although his attitude on-court rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way (and several ball kids felt his wrath over the years) he had an attractive all-court game that will be missed on tour.

In singles he reached the final of Australian Open in 2001, won four titles and reached a career high ranking of 10.

Career doubles highlights include winning Wimbledon in 2007, the Paris Masters in 2006 (both with Michael Llodra) and the Miami Masters in 2004, where he partnered close friend and the vanquished opponent from that Australian Open semi-final, Sebastien Grosjean.

The Grass Gimps

In the era of surface homogenisation there’s something comforting about the existence of players who are just completely abject on a particular footing.

For the last few months I’ve taken a strange pleasure in the struggles of the Clay Court Clowns (guys like Lukas Lacko and Go Soeda) but their torment is over for another nine months or so.

The Grass Gimps only have to suffer for a couple of weeks in the year so results here carry quite a lot of weight when it comes to determining the ultimate in that particular category.

Notable contenders here include:

1. Franko Skugor, who moves to 0-4 on grass for his career after being routined by Kamil Capkovic, who was previously 0-3

2. Pavol Cervenak, with a current mark of 1-4 after being beaten in three by Simone Vagnozzi, who was 0-3 beforehand.

3. Jan Mertl, now with a 0-5 career record after losing to Maxime Teixiera, who was playing just his second match on the surface.

Priorities, priorities

Grass season is never likely to be  top of the agenda for the above category of players, the schedule of Daniel Gimeno-Traver being a case in point.

Last week the Spaniard produced some of the best tennis of his career to take a Challenger title in Monza, beating decent dirtballers such as Potito Starace and Albert Montanes along the way.

His final against the latter player finished at close to 20:00 on Sunday night, so we can safely say that it was well after midnight by the time he arrived at his hotel in London.

With no time to adapt it’s not surprising that he lost to 17-year-old Wildcard Kyle Edmund (though it has to be said it’s an excellent scalp for the young Brit regardless of the circumstances).

Aljaz Bedene, the other title winner on the clay Challenger circuit last week, went down in straight sets to Australian James Duckworth.

Neither Gimeno nor Bedene will be losing too much sleep.

Unlucky for some

Given the sheer propensity of grass novices and no-hopers in Roehampton, it was surprising to see the draw throw up a couple of match-ups between two players with some reasonable pedigree on the surface.

Adrian Mannarino reached the second round of Wimbledon last year and has grass wins over the likes of Juan Martin Del Potro and Ernests Gulbis.

He would have been heavily favoured against the overwhelming majority of players but came up against Jesse Levine, who beat Marat Safin on his way to the third round of the main draw in 2008, and went down 10-8 in the third.

Ricardas Berankis went 9-1 on grass in 2010, winning the Nottingham Challenger and reaching the second round of the main draw as a qualifier.

Again, he would have fancied his chances against most of the field but lost out to 2009 Boy’s champion Andrey Kuznetsov in straight-sets.

Not you again

In terms of playing at the same tournament, the paths of Yuichi Sugita and Gianluca Naso very rarely cross.

They’ve entered the same event just four times in 2012 yet the Wimbledon qualifying draw pitted them against each other for the third successive major this year.

As expected, Naso won the clay court encounter in France while Sugita added to his win in Melbourne with a tight three-set victory today in Roehampton.

They’ll be going for a Grand Slam of sorts if they both make it to Flushing Meadows

One-time leader and people's choice, Wayne Odesnik, now out of contention

Rather than holding a separate tournament, this year the USTA will award its Roland Garros wildcard to the player who accumulates the most points at the Sarasota and Savannah Challenger events.

With his victory in Sarasota, Sam Querrey technically leads the standings but his ranking of 99 on the April 16 cut-off was enough to secure a place in the Paris main draw anyway.

After of the Savannah quarter-finals, three players remain in contention. Here are the current standings:

The scenarios now are pretty simple.

Sweeting needs to win the title to take the wildcard but should he lose his semi-final against Gensse then the winner of the other semi-final between Baker and Strode gets the prize regardless of how they do in a potential final against the Frenchman.