Dzmitry Zhyrmont – exotic spelling and grass court success go hand in hand (pic: Tennis Alternative)
With seeds occasionally, strewn to the wind, Wimbledon qualifying for the men is scheduled to come to a conclusion on Wednesday.
All will earn their place over the true Grand Slam distance of five sets – plus at least one lucky loser.
A whole range of players are into the final round, ranging from players seen many, many times before to those who could easily tiptoe past even the more hard core watches of Futures without a second glance.
Top of that list has to be Dzmitry Zhyrmont, who has made his way to 239 on the rankings computer, and knocked out Radu Albot and Paul Capdeville to make it this far. The Belarussian has managed to move 300 places up the rankings in a year at the age of 24, Most of that push came last year, and a run as a lucky loser in the Nottingham Challenger (2) got him into the last eight.
All this is new territory, and he has an experienced opponent in Stephane Robert, albeit not one of nature’s grass specialists. Mr.Two Z’s may have a chance to achieve some fame outside of Davis Cup appearances for his homeland.
Old hands at all this sort of thing are Wayne Odesnik, last year’s lucky loser, and Belgian Olivier Rochus, who has good grass court pedigree from his Newport appearances.
You can expect a thorough lack of percentage play when Dustin Brown faces Evgeny Korolev. The Dreddy Man has had a pretty quiet past few months after qualifying for Doha and making the Sarajevo Challenger final. This is a big chance for him to get his profile and ranking points total back up.
30-year-old Serbian Boris Pashanksi hadn’t won a singles match on grass until this week. He’d not bothered showing up at Wimbledon for five years after losing to British wild card Chris Eaton the time before. He’d also taken a set of Andre Agassi, but life is strange. But having knocked out Rik de Voest and less excitingly, Gianluca Naso, a match with out of form Go Soeda offers many possibilities.
Other good match ups include Denis Kudla against Ruben Bemelmans, who is happy on grass, all court Australian James Duckworth against barrel chested biffer Michael Berrer and the exotically cross-continental meeting of Malek Jaziri and Jimmy Wang, who attracted a significant following of Taiwanese fans when making the main draw last year.
Finally, a word on Austria’s Martin Fischer. Having sweated on someone dropping out of qualifying, he got his chance. Since then, opponents Simon Greul and Denys Molchanov have both been forced to retire against him. The force is strong in this one. Next up is Teymuraz Gabashvili, who may be in need of extra strappings at a minimum.
The other matches are: Bastian Knittel (29 and zero slam appearances) v Flavio Cipolla, Joao Sousa v Julian Reister, Jan-Lennard Struff v Igor Kunitsyn, Tim Smyczek v Matt Reid, Michal Przysiezny v Daniel Munoz-De La Nava, Rhyne Williams v Bobby Reynolds, Maxime Authom v Alex Kuznetsov and Javier Marti against Marc Gicquel or Farrukh Dustov.