Clay.

Awful qualifying campaign. These guys really need to work on their clay court games. Boggo should be able to make a game of it against guys like Gil on clay or he'll be unlikely to go much further than just inside the top 100. There are many valuable points up for grabs in the clay court season and it seems these have passed all the Brits by for yet another year.

Bit of a lame loss there for Boggo.

shame to see Boggo lose so tamely on the clay but on the positive side it gives him time to get used to the grass and I'm hoping for a great grasscourt swing from him.

Annoying and disappointing as it is to see our boys lose on the clay I think it's worth mentioning that it's not just the Brits. there are plenty of tennis players out there who dislike the dirt (the Americans being the obvious example but there are more). And whilst I agree that the Brits should be aiming to improve on the dirt it's not the case that they are doomed if they don't acheive greatness on it. Equally we can see some of the blatent clay-court players doing well in the rankings even though they rarely turn up in hard court/grass court tournaments. It is possible to make the top 100 without being able to play on all surfaces, heck Andy made the top 10 (I realise he can play on clay but he hasn't got any points from it in his total at the moment), it's just harder.

Yeah, but the Brits between 100 and 500 (with the exception of the Baker boy) have a natural disadvantage because they can play properly on only two surfaces - fast indoor hard and grass. There's hardly any tennis on grass and all the tournaments on indoor hard are high profile (except for Bangkok). Andy can play on outdoor hard of all speeds, too, which our other players can't.

There are loads of small clay tournaments on clay in both South America and Europe. Many of the clay specialists ranked between 60 and 130 just have a good run in one or two of them and maintain there position in the top 100 for the next few months. It's the same with the Americans because there's so much of tennis being played on hard courts.

I think that Boggo needs to improve quite a bit on his weaker surfaces if he wants to progress into the top 70 or 80.

Yeah, Roehampton has clay courts. Alex is taking the next week off.



I keep telling that the LTA needs introduce Challenger on clay or one on slower hard courts. It's not like playing one tournament on clay will suddenly make them all good players on that surface, but a good run at home on the dirt could give them a lot of self belief. In any case, it can't be for the worse, so maybe it's worth a try.

It'll be good to have another Challenger. We could do with some more tennis being played in the country. This year we have 32 weeks of men's tennis, which is less than what they have in USA, Spain, Italy etc.