[Scotso]

He's entered in the Joplin challenger qualifying.

Is he related to Jarkko? They're both Fins.

 

[TennisHack]

No, there is no relation to Jarkko. I don't know too much about him, but if you ever see them together (ie, Davis Cup), there is no resemblence at all.

 

[J_Nieminen fan]

No they are not...I live in Finland and this is fact!!
I have seen them playing 100 times and I know some insidefacts so they are not...Timo is quite good at playing...But not as good as Jarkko...as we can see...Tuomas Ketola is the 2nd best player in Finland...Tuomas and Jarkko were practising together in Sydney this year...:bounce:

 

[Sjengster]

Don't want to sound like I'm sneering at your players, but I saw Ketola play his first-round match with Henman at the US Open last year, and if that's what the no. 2 Finnish player is like then I fear for the lower-ranked ones... the guy could not play the same shot twice, constantly broke down in rallies of more than two strokes, had an extremely low ball toss on serve yielding a ton of double faults, and most distractingly of all bore more than a passing resemblance to Bill Murray.

However, in the DC tie against the Netherlands he did extend the Sjengster to a marathon first-set tiebreak (I believe it was 15-13 that Schalken won it?), so he can't be all bad.

 

[TennisHack]

Sjengster -- there's a reason the #2 Finnish player is ranked somewhere in the 200's, and you nailed it

Besides, considering Britian's faltering tennis program, I don't think you have much room to talk Kidding of course!

 

[Sjengster]

Hey hey, no need to kid - but at least Britain's lower-ranked tennis players can keep the ball in play for longer than Ketola (about 2 or 3 shots longer, mind you )

In fact, Britain and Finland seem to be on something of a par in terms of tennis ability - around a decade ago they kept meeting in Davis Cup relegation/qualifying ties, although I'm proud to say that whether home or away, we won every time.

Mind you, beating Finland wasn't exactly a great testament to our tennis skills back then; equally, we gained little comfort from thrashing the illustrious nation of Monaco 5-0 in 1995, winning 13 consecutive sets, since (with apologies to Prince Albert) it's not the greatest of tennis nations, is it?

Mind you, when a British team loses to Romania on grass because one of their leading players throws away a 6-0, 6-3, 5-1 lead in the opening match to lose in five sets, and when that team also loses to Ecuador on grass because their second player throws away a 6-4, 6-3 lead in the deciding rubber to lose in five sets, we have to take everything we can get.