Week 32 - ATP 1000 - Coupe Rogers - Montreal, Canada (hard)

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Week 32 - ATP 1000 - Coupe Rogers - Montreal, Canada (hard)

flamingowings · All-time great

Kyle and Ferrer are warming up.

Babfive · Pro player

4-3*

steven · Tennis legend

1 break apiece in the 1st set, tiebreak time ...

*0-0
1-0*
2-0*

*3-0

*3-1

3-2*

3-3*

Quite a mini-break fest ...

*4-3

*4-4

5-4*
5-5*
*6-5

set point
7-5

flamingowings · All-time great

Come on Kyle!

Jaffa · Challenger level

Just broken back in the third. Good match

Mark Hilton is in the box..

Jan · Hall of fame

Soooo close, but not to be cry

Jaffa · Challenger level

Another three set defeat. Last two games were shocking by all accounts

Do others see my point yet?

indiana · Tennis legend

Indeed. 10 best of three set matches against top 50 players this year that have gone to three sets, all 10 lost.

He does have ( just ) 3 wins against top 50 players this year, Pouille in two ( retired in the second set ), Evo in two on clay and Jack Sock in two recently. Overall he is 3-15 against top 50 players this year.

No doubt some will still be well encouraged by the general competitiveness against top players, indeed some very top players and see it as a stage before he wins more such matches. And hopefully he will. But still surely better he was winning some of these here and now. The sooner Kyle moves through stages the better overall for his career so it's at least shall we say not ideal

It is true in his early pro days in lower ranks he quite often fell way markedly and pretty much solved that. Nowadays he takes on the best, at times very well, and rather too often relatively falls away at the very business end of tight matches. May this be solved too, but the sooner the better.

Jaggy1876 · Grand Slam Champion

Begins with C and end with hallenger.

At the moment anyway.

TMH · Futures qualifying

I'm on the fence. It's a little bit concerning how often this is happening and how he seems to have stalled somewhat, but equally I think he is very close to beating these players and that it's only matter of time before these tight 3-set defeats starting turning into encouraging 2- or 3-set wins.

Alas it's not always a straightforward path and players face all sort of obstacles as they progress closer and closer to the top. Just look at the likes of Coric. It only gets harder but I think Kyle will find a way to start turning these performances into wins.

TMH · Futures qualifying

Jaggy1876 wrote:
Begins with C and end with hallenger.

At the moment anyway.

Nah. What's he going to learn from beating a load of players ranked 50-100 places below him? The only thing to gain is confidence (even if it false, clearly some players benefit from the placebo effect), and I don't see Kyle as a player particularly reliant on confidence. You learn far more from failure than from success, or whatever the old adage is. Now clearly if he continues to struggle and drops back towards the 100 mark then it would be time to start considering dropping down, but not at #43 in the world after a few tough losses to top 50 players!

Aren't you one of the ones who usually complain about players in the top 50 dropping down to Challengers? Apologies if I'm confusing you with someone else.

steven · Tennis legend

Jaggy1876 wrote:
Begins with C and end with hallenger.

At the moment anyway.

I agree that Kyle is a top Challenger player but being a top Challenger player is the main qualification for being a decent main tour player. He needs to work out a way to start winning more of these tight 3-setters, for sure, but the fact that he's getting this close against so many top 50 players means he has every right to be taken seriously on the main tour.

It does sometimes seem crazy that a player can be ranked in the top N having hardly beaten anyone in the top N in the previous 12 months but that's a function of the way the rankings work - you can find examples of it happening for virtually whatever N you look at.

indiana · Tennis legend

Kyle is no challenger player, he has moved on, is top 50 and has shown real quality against some very good players and with areas he can clearly develop further.

But there is a pattern for now in these three setters and he and his team need to consider why, and break that to move on again in the rankings ( he risks a bit of a fall back with points coming off over the remainder of the year, particularly from last year's US Open ). When do learning experiences become rather worrying seemingly repeated issues? But he is in the right place, in the right competitions.

indiana · Tennis legend

Just one other thing for now on these ten 3 set matches against top 50 players, none of them really went right down to the wire in the end.

In the final sets five have been 6-4 and the other five 6-3 so a cumulative 60-35 in games after sharing the opening two sets.