A Tennis note from local superstar
From Nigel Mitten
Nigel Mitten
Hi folks...
I just finished playing the $100,000 XL Open in Bermuda, which is on clay. I was trying to qualify to get into the main draw of the tournament but lost one match short of qualifying. If I had qualified I would have boosted my ranking about 300 spots to about 900 something in the world.
Along the way I managed to beat the #5 seed in the qualifying draw, Thomas Blake, who is the older brother of American Davis Cup player James Blake. He finished 2002 ranked #189 in the world. I won this match 6-3 3-6 6-3 in just over two hours.
In the last round of qualifying
I played the #1 seed Sebastian De Chaunac of France who beat Michael
Chang at last years French Open. I lost 6-2 6-1. The match started
off fairly even as we both came out firing right from the beginning
and were having some long baseline exchanges.
I got down a break early on in the first set but was not without
my opportunities to get myself back level in the set. Unfortunately
I had some bad breaks with some line calls at key moments, which
rattled my concentration, and I was never really able to pick
up where I left off mentally after this.
De Chaunac then went on
to the main draw where he lost to the #5 seed and defending champion
of the Xl Open Flavio Saretta of Brazil in three sets, after having
two match points in the second set.
More later