By Niall Clarke
- British players hope for Wimbledon qualification
- Round two starts on Wednesday
With Wimbledon right around the corner, some of Great Britain’s lower ranked players started their bid to qualify for the main draw.
ATP
Qualifications started on a rainy Monday morning at SW19 with plenty of Brits in action, but the fortunes of our representatives were very mixed.
Richard Gabb retired in the second set in his match against Andrey Kuznetsov. The wildcard was clearly outmatch by an opponent ranked over 400 places ahead of him in the rankings. Kuznetsov ran out a 6-2, 3-0 (ret.) winner.
Thing would look up from a British perspective as Josh Milton defeated Jan Hernych in three sets. The world number 284 came from behind to win 3-6, 6-3, 6-4. He will play Michael Berrer in the second round.
It feels like a long time since Dan Evans beat Kei Nishikori at the US Open. In fact it has been almost two years, and since then then he has seemingly disappeared off the face of the earth- or to number 752 in the world. But he’s back to winning ways after a straight sets victory over Jaroslav Pospisil.
Alexander Ward (no relation to James as far as I can tell) could not replicate that success. He fell in straight sets to Yuichi Sugita 6-3, 6-2.
Daniel Cox could not find a way past Matthias Bachinger, but Edward Corrie had success against Daniel Munoz De-La Nava.
Richard Bloomfield was the only British male in action on Tuesday due to the rain delays. The unranked wildcard put in a good effort, but lost to Farrukh Dustov in three sets.
WTA
The women’s qualifications began on Tuesday with eight British players in action.
First up was Katy Dunne who needed three sets to defeat Anhelina Kalinina. The Brit took the first set on a tiebreak, and after losing to second 6-3, she went on to take the decider 6-2.
Emily Webley Smith took the first set against Grace Min but the American’s pressure was too much for the world number 303. Min advanced with a three set victory.
It did not go much better for Naomi Cavady who lost to Stephanie Vogt in straight sets 6-3, 6-3.
Katie Swan in the meanwhile pulled off a big upset to defeat WTA world 118 Kristina Kucova in straight sets.
Lucy Brown and Amanda Carreras both fell to higher ranked opponents. Brown lost to Maria Sanchez in three sets, whilst Carreras lost to Mandy Minella in straights.
There was a guarantee that we would see one British player in the second round, regardless of what happened elsewhere. An all British affair between Tara Moore Gabriella Taylor was only needed an hour and seven minutes to settle as Moore ran out a 6-2, 6-1 winner.
Wimbledon qualifications continues tomorrow. You can follow all the action on Britwatchsports.com