Northampton’s Alex Ward reached the semi-finals of a $15k event in Espinho, Portugal last week where he lost to German left-hander Marc Sieber.
Alex has spent the last two weeks in Portugal, but a bout of flu hindered his progress in a £15k tournament in Porto, where he went down 6-2, 6-4 against Tim Van Terheijden from the Netherlands.
Last week though, was a different matter. Ward opened up by beating Vasco Mensurado from the home country 6-2,6-1 before accounting for Spaniard Carlo Poch-Gradin 1-6, 6-3, 7-5, the number six seed. The quarter-finals brought him head to head with second seed Marcel Zimmermann, but again Ward was successful, by a 6-3, 7-6 (7-2) margin.
Sieber has been as high as 343 in the world, and currently stands at 572 and he ended Ward’s run with a 6-3, 6-2 win.
Alex said: “Last week was definitely a breakthrough week for me, being my first semi final since March. To have got so far gives me a lot of confidence for the last four tournaments of the year when I’ll be playing in Turkey followed by two tournaments in Israel. The quarter final in Portugal against Zimmerman was probably my best ever win on clay so I was delighted. I played really aggressively from start to finish and hopefully I’ll be able to continue that form into the remainder of the season.”