Norfolk’s Richard Bloomfield in second round exit at $15k Futures tennis event

Daniel Wynne
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
5:10 PM

Richard Bloomfield’s patchy start to 2012 continued at the Wirral Tennis & Sports Centre with a second round exit at the $15k Futures event.

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Bloomfield lost to 22-year-old Sean Thornley of Kent 6-4, 6-4 after blasting his way past 8th seed Karan Rastogi in round one.

Thornley, ranked 134 places below the Norfolk man at 606, was more suited to the slower surface and played a consistent match, forcing Bloomfield into errors that had not been evident in his 6-3, 6-2 victory over Rastogi.

A break of serve in each set was enough to steer the British number 19 into the third round and leave Bloomfield frustrated.

The Norfolk man admitted struggling with the pace of the court: “The courts were so slow it was difficult for me to hit through them. Points were going on much longer than suits my game and it became an uphill battle.”

“The first set was frustrating with some things that went against me that perhaps shouldn’t have, but it just didn’t happen in the second set.”

Thornley fell to second seed and eventual champion Yannick Mertens in the following round but he and Hertfordshire’s David Rice would go on to win the doubles title; defeating fellow Brits Lewis Burton and Chris Eaton 6-2, 6-3 in a one-sided final.

Bloomfield will head back to the Graves Centre in Sheffield for a British Tour event this week but is likely not to be required until Thursday. In a recent Futures tournament at the same venue, the 28 year old from Alpington bowed out in the last 16 following a straight sets defeat to Northamptonshire’s Alex Ward.

So far, 2012 has yet to produce any results of note for the former Hobart High School pupil who has exited the last three Futures events before the quarter-final stages and a run at the British Tour level in Billesley was cut short in the semi-final by British number four Josh Goodall in three long sets.