Kolding 50K+H Challenger

admin · Kolding 50K+H Challenger

This starts on 16th October.

Entry list:

1 Sanguinetti, Davide ITA 74
2 Vik, Robin CZE 86
3 Kim, Kevin USA 87
4 Sluiter, Raemon NED 88
5 Norman, Dick BEL 95
6 Muller, Gilles LUX 99
7 Pless, Kristian DEN 109
8 Waske, Alexander GER 114
9 Carlsen, Kenneth DEN 124
10 Kubot, Lukasz POL 128
11 Wang, Yeu-Tzuoo TPE 131
12 Minar, Ivo CZE 135
13 Lu, Yen-Hsun TPE 137
14 Zib, Tomas CZE 143
15 Berrer, Michael GER 145
16 Vinciguerra, Andreas SWE 147
17 Bogdanovic, Alex GBR 148
18 Llodra, Michael FRA 151
19 Luczak, Peter AUS 155
20 Cakl, Tomas CZE 158
21 Montcourt, Mathieu FRA 159
22 Karanusic, Roko CRO 167
23 (SE)
24 (SE)
25 (WC)
26 (WC)
27 (WC)
28 (WC)
29 (Q)
30 (Q)
31 (Q)
32 (Q)

Alternates
1. Lisnard, Jean-Rene MON 172
2. Burgsmuller, Lars GER 173
3. Arthurs, Wayne AUS 178
4. Mertl, Jan CZE 182
5. Vico, Uros ITA 185
6. Saulnier, Cyril FRA 187
7. Stakhovsky, Sergiy UKR 188
8. Faurel, Jean-Christophe FRA 192
9. Okun, Noam ISR 194
10. Zverev, Mischa GER 196
11. Klec, Ivo SVK 198
12. Cipolla, Flavio ITA 203
13. Ascione, Thierry FRA 205
14. Lacko, Lukas SVK 207
15. Vagnozzi, Simone ITA 213
16. Lopez, Marc ESP 215
17. Haase, Robin NED 217
18. Popp, Torsten GER 218
19. Lee, Martin GBR 221
20. Elseneer, Gilles BEL 222

admin

This is an extremely strong draw for just a 50K+H challenger !!!!

6 player in the top 100 Surprised

Arka

Yep, it's during the same week as the Madrid Masters.

Jono

Some very good soundbites about being in top 100 and top 50, but which players can Alex beat in the top 50 and 51-99, in order to overtake them.It does seem quite tough!

admin

Match reports from this week:

A Bogdanovic [GB][5] bt M Lopez [Esp] 6-3, 6-1

Alex won 11 out of the last 12 games to secure victory over Spain's Marc Lopez. Alex got off to a slow start, having to save a break point in the opening game and then being broken in game 3. Lopez consolidated the break to lead 3-1 and it looked as though he was going to cause Alex quite a few more problems than had been anticipated beforehand. Alex started to find his rhythm on serve, recovering from 15-30 to hold and reduce the deficit to 3-2. He secured 2 break points at 15-40 in the very next game and although Lopez saved both, Alex took his 3rd chance to level the set at 3-3. In game 8 with Alex leading 4-3; he raced to 0-40 on the Lopez serve. The Spaniard saved all 3 break points but Alex was not to be denied and created a 4th opportunity which he took to lead 5-3. A hold to love followed and Alex had won 5 straight games to take the 1st set.
In the 2nd set, Alex broke to 30 in the opening game and when he secured a double break to lead 3-0, the match was effectively over. He wrapped up the match in style with a break in the final game and will now play Italy's Uros Vico who beat Czech Tomas Zib 7-5, 6-3 in rd1.

Speaking after the match, Alex's coach said "The match wasn't as easy as the score suggests. The courts in Kolding are very strange, you don't really know what the ball is going to do. The balls in general keep pretty low, slice is just dying on the court and topspin doesn't really do anything. It suits players who get to the net a lot. You need to try and take control of the point very early on otherwise you get stuck 5 feet behind the baseline, your opponent's going to be coming to the net and you're going to end up having to try to make passing shots off very low balls which is difficult. Alex didn't blast the guy off the court today, Lopez was a bit of a hacker; he chased everything down and hit lots of slices, keeping the ball very low. Alex won because of his understanding of game strategy and he was able to mix things up. The great thing about Alex is that even when he's not playing well he's able to work out what he needs to do to win."

admin

A Bogdanovic [GB][5] bt U Vico [Ita] 7-6[3], 7-6[4]

Alex came through a tricky test against Uros Vico, edging past the Italian via two tiebreaks to reach the quarter-finals. The match was mainly dominated by serve, chances were few and far between in the first set with neither players having to face a break point. In the resulting tiebreak, Alex obtained the crucial minibreak to go 2-0 up and never relinquished his advantage, securing 3 set points at 6-3 and he took the first, on the Vico serve.

In the 2nd set, Alex broke in the 5th game to go 3-2 up and maintained his advantage, holding comfortably until he served for the match at 5-4. Unfortunately, a few loose shots led to him being broken to 15. He had a chance to get the break right back in the next game where he held 0-30 on the Vico serve but the Italian held his nerve and served himself out of trouble. Another tiebreak soon followed and it was an edgy affair. Both players exchanged minibreaks early on and then Vico opened up a 4-2 lead. Alex pulled it back to 4-3 and then took advantage of a couple of timely errors from Vico to win both points on the Italian's serve and he closed it out 7-4.

This win means that Alex defends 12 points from reaching the Southampton challenger quarter-finals this time last year. He will actually gain two points as Kolding is a 50K+H challenger while Southampton was just a 50K. In Friday's quarter-finals, Alex will face Dutch top seed Raemon Sluiter.

admin

A Bogdanovic [GB][5] lost to R Sluiter [Ned][1] 6-7[5], 6-7[6]

This quarter-final match is probably one which Alex would rather forget. He held the advantage in both sets but Sluiter kept fighting back and was able to edge a match which could quite easily have gone the other way. Alex got off to a great start, breaking Sluiter in game 2 and establishing a 3-0 lead, winning 12 of the first 13 points. That lead soon became 5-2 as Alex continued to hold easily. He served for the first set at 5-3 but at this point, Sluiter upped his level, forcing two break points. Alex saved both but Sluiter created another opportunity and broke back to reduce the deficit to 5-4. The set went to a tiebreak, Alex got the early minibreak and led 3-1 but Sluiter took the next 3 points to lead 4-3. Both players continued to hold their serves but at 5-5 it was Sluiter who held his nerve to take the breaker 7-5.
The 2nd set was just as close, going with serve all the way to a tiebreak. Alex's best chance came at 3-3 when he got to 0-30 on the Sluiter serve but the top seed pulled out some massive serves to win 4 straight points. At 6-5 Sluiter was 2 points away from the match, at 15-30 on Alex's serve. However, Alex was able to get his 1st serve in and control the rallies to avert the danger. In the breaker, Alex again got the early minibreak and soon led 5-2. At 6-2 he held 3 set points and it looked as though the match was heading for a decider. Unfortunately Sluiter had other ideas, Alex tightened up and the Dutchman took advantage of some passive play to win 6 straight points to move into the semis.
Despite this loss, it's still been an extremely good week for Alex, who's defended his points from reaching the Southampton challenger quarters this time last year and he came close to a straight sets win over a top 100 player. Alex now heads for Nottingham for next week's 25K challenger where he will be the 2nd seed

admin

I'm hoping to find out some info from Alex's coach on what happened in that 2nd set tiebreak against Sluiter. Alex will be disappointed as if chances had gone his way, he could have won in straights.

The courts in Kolding have been very difficult for all the players this week as they're so weird compared to most indoor courts on the circuit. They're totally different to the courts in Mons where the ball really bounced up and it made for quite a lot of baseline rallies. In Kolding, the key was to get to the net because the ball was keeping so low and whoever got there was likely to win the point.

Alex's form has been really great for the past month, in his last 3 tournaments the players he's lost to have been Henman, Tipsarevic and Sluiter, all established top 100 players and all very effective indoors.

admin

admin

This weekend alexbogdanovic.com caught up with Alex's coach Mike Raphael and he gave his thoughts on some of Alex's matches in Kolding.

Rd2: Bogdanovic bt Vico 7-6[3], 7-6[4]
"In the 1st set, Vico served unbelievably well, Alex did very well to keep his focus. Vico's pretty gifted with his backhand, he has an amazing ability to create angles. This made it very difficult for Alex to attack on that side but Vico's forehand was a lot weaker. Alex noticed these weaknesses but didn't exploit them too much otherwise Vico would start to realise what he was doing. Instead, Alex waited until the big points and then attacked Vico in these areas. As a result Alex won 90% of the big points."

QF: Bogdanovic lost to Sluiter 6-7[5], 6-7[6]: "When Alex was broken, serving for the 1st set at 5-3, you have to give credit to Sluiter. He made a lot of returns and got on top of Alex in the rallies, hardly making any errors. This made Alex try for some really big serves which he missed. In the tiebreak, I think that the turning point came when Alex was leading 3-2. He missed three 2nd serve returns on Sluiter's next 3 service points and in a tiebreak, every point is crucial, you've got to make as many returns as possible. In the 2nd set tiebreak, Alex led led 6-2 but lost it 8-6. Those last 6 points went so fast, I can't really remember what happened. I think Alex lost his focus and was guilty of thinking he was already in a 3rd set which is easy to do when you've got a lead like that. I think that Alex was the better player in this match. In terms of performance this week, it was his best match but in terms of focus his win over Vico was his best match."