Location: Caloundra, Australia Prize Money: $50,000 Surface: Outdoor Hard 2011 Champion: Grega Zemlja (SLO) Web: Official website
A lovely tournament in the Australian Sunshine Coast didn't attract very good players, just like it never does. Decent Yen-Hsun Lu from Taipei is the top seed and the terribly out of shape home boy Marinko Matosevic is seeded second. The first plays a qualifier (no one dangerous in there) and the other faces his compatriot James Lemke. The chap hasn't made a bigger career other than winning some Australian futures; maybe because as his ITF profile claims he had started playing tennis aged 73.
Cruel draw for James Duckworth - third seeded youngster got the dodgy fox Adam Feeney. In theory Duckworth is favourite but he can't be as nonchalant as last week in Burnie. In their only meeting four years ago Duckworth won in straight sets. He was 16 y.o.
Who else is interesting? Surely Burnie's finalist Sam Groth whose draw is good enough for the semifinal and consists of no-names and out-of-shape players. Benjamin Mitchell looks forward to quarters where he should meet Lu. John Millman seems like a strong contender in his quarter - assuming the Australian handles his Achilles issues that bothered him in his lost match in Burnie. Otherwise it might be not cool. Finally, one more quarter, Jimmy Wang looks strong but let's see if Duckworth's rattled ego can bring anything to the table. Kamil Capkovic was lucky to draw Brydan Klein. Klein doesn't look convincing these days at all. Raven Klaasen can actually win a match (maybe) because he's up against Henri Laaksonen, a Swiss. Surely not the new Federer, that's the guy who used to play for Finland but had problems with sponsorship there and keeping in mind some Swiss family relations he got a new citizenship. Laaksonen also makes the tournament cut at #589 ATP. Hooray.
Location: Caloundra, Australia