If you have been reading this site in the last few months, you would have read about our friend Edward Oueilhe. TennisThis.com and StringThing USA have put forth a lot of help to helping Edward become the next top American tennis professional – especially since there’s a general lack these days.
As you may know, Edward traveled to Japan to play a series of Futures tennis tournaments there, however; right in the middle of the qualifying rounds, the largest earthquake recorded in Japan’s history struck, which was followed by a Tsunami. With these catastrophic events, all the tennis tournaments were canceled in the area. As you can imagine, Edward had to hop on the next flight back to the states to get out of dangers way.
After a few weeks, Edward had no choice but to get back on the horse and figure out where he needed to play. His team decided that Durban, South Africa would be a good place to start. Of course Durban is far and as you can imagine, expensive. Remember, Edward does not have the financial backing that many other touring professionals have. After some begging and pleading, Edward was able to receive some really generous donations – a flight to South Africa and a few host families willing to put him up during his time in Durban.
What’s in store for Edward at this Futures tennis tournament? Well, by the looks of things, there is some stiff competition, several guys ranked in the top 700 in the world. But more pressing is the drive the field has. Edward told us, “The difference between Futures players and the rest of the pros is that these guys are all trying their best to break through. I’ll more than likely play against guys that are way more determined than most players.” Of course that’s not to say that all tennis players are determined, it’s just a different intensity of determination.
Does Edward have a chance to go all the way in this Futures tournament? Of course he does, he wants it and he has all the tools to do so. With a huge serve (rumored to be up at around 150mph) and his net play, Edward should do just wonderfully in Durban! Of course we can only keep our fingers crossed and relay the results as we get them.
Stay tuned for a follow up after he completes this Futures tennis tournament.
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Edward won his first match in the Durban F-2 main draw, 6-4, 4-6, 6-4, against a 19 year-old South African player who received a wild card. The young man Edward defeated was a dangerous first round opponent.
Since Edward made the round of 16 in the main draw for the second time in two weeks, he will pick up another critical ATP point. Up next tomorrow AM for Edward is an older player (27 years-old) from Greece ranked 585 in the world. Hopefully this young Helenic, like his home nation, DEFAULTS (lol, just kidding). All joking aside, a win for Edward would be a major breakthrough, and would bring him within one match of being slotted directly into the main draw of just about every Futures tournament he schedules.
Regardless of how Edward fares the balance of his stay in Durban, the trip should be considered a success – he has gone 8-1 in match play thus far in South Africa, and has won all three high pressure sets (tiebeaker sets and third sets) in which he competed (and all three of such sets won were against good players). Hopefully Edward’s sponsors are pleased with his results, because they should be.
Edward has done well in Durban so far. He won all three qualifiers in the F-1 tournament and won the first round of the main draw. He lost in the round of 16 to a guy ranked in the 600s. The guy Edward beat in his final round of qualifiers made it to the SFs of the main draw after making the field as a LL. By making the round of 16, Edward picked up a critical ATP point, which will help him get slotted into the main draw (or the qualifying draw in stacked tourneys) in Futures tournaments down the road.
Edward has just made the main draw (winning all three qualifiers without dropping a set) of the South Africa F-2 tournament, and we anxiously await his results from this upcoming week.