Quote:
Originally Posted by Inglewood Jack
yeah I actually caught a bit of it...not very competitive, so they resorted to circus shots in the 2nd set (running lobs, tweeners, over the shoulder, etc.) to keep the crowd entertained. sadly they will not be raising a banner for Bemelmans this week.
the match had me thinking though, what is that experience really like for a journeyman player? on one hand you can tell your grandchildren that you got to be stomped by a living legend. on the other hand, you paid a significant chunk of money (from your shallow sub-100 ranked pockets) to fly to Rotterdam, only to find out a few days beforehand that a guy who wasn't even planning on being there is now suddenly about to guarantee your early exit.
not like Bemelmans would be favored to win any of his matches anyways, but drawing a wild card matchup like that means your wages are getting capped hard, and there's nothing you can do about it.
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i think players just like playing as a career and hey maybe maybe one day in a thousand they'll cause an upset.
There are many players who slog the entire lives on the futures tour, maybe getting a wildcard in a challenger and winning a match.
Some players dream of just getting ONE ATP point in their lives.
1 ATP point = 1 futures win.
A guy could win 3 qualifying matches to get to the futures event, lose that 1st round match and get 0 points. Maybe make a couple hundred bucks.