Lonely Henman shows up lack of British talent

Count Zero · Tennis legend

Roland Garros Qualifying

john · Top national player

Can I just point out that I didn't say Alex would never make top 100 if he can't play on clay. I said that he would never be any better than a guy just inside the top 100. Needs to improve on the surface to make his eventual target of top 50.

Obviously we can point to examples and the extreme one is Andy, but surely you're not comparing Andy to Boggo??? I don't think Boggo is that good on indoor hard and grass that he can make top 50 without picking up points on his weaker surfaces. Before anyone jumps in and bashes me, read that statement again. I didn't say he's no good I said i don't think he's quite that good or will ever be that good that he could make top 50 picking up points exclusively on indoor surfaces and grass. Anyone care to disagree?

I think it's great the progress that Boggo has made in challengers indoors. And earlier this year he made a big leap winning a challenger outdoors. But I think the next step has to be to work on his weaker surfaces and the reasons why he is weaker on them.

imoen · Admin: Moderator+Tennis Legend

I agree with all you say john. i wasn't trying to attack anyone (or their opinions). I just wanted to inject a bit of optimism into the discussion on Brits and clay. I agree Boggo (and all the Brits) need to work on their weaker surfaces, of which clay is undoubtedly the weakest, just saying that they will always have a surface which is weak for them and that that's not neccessarily going to stop them doing well.

johnnylad · Tennis legend

Andujar leads Navarro-Pastor 2-0 early on!

Count Zero · Tennis legend

wrogn thread but tim gets gulbuis!! syrely one he can win

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Count Zero wrote:

tim gets gulbis!!

Whichever way you look at it, this article, from today's Indy, does not make for comfortable reading

:

Lonely Henman shows up lack of British talent

by Paul Newman at Roland Garros

Anyone seeking further evidence of the lack of depth in British tennis - such as those who have been visiting other solar systems over the last 10 years - should look no further than the list of 256 players who will play singles at this year's French Open, which begins here on Sunday. When the draw is made this morning the letters "GB" will appear after just one name, that of Timothy Henry Henman.

Following Andy Murray's withdrawal with a wrist injury, Henman's only hopes of company rested in the qualifying tournament. Nine Britons entered, seven lost in the first round and Alex Bogdanovic and Anne Keothavong fell at the second hurdle yesterday. Bogdanovic, who this week climbed to his highest ever world ranking at No 113, beat Russia's Yuri Schukin in the first round, but won just three games in losing to Portugal's Frederico Gil, ranked 40 places beneath him.

The continuing failure of the 23-year-old left-hander to excel on the highest stages is a major frustration. While nobody doubts his talent - he has won six Challenger tournaments in the last two years - Bogdanovic has yet to prove he can rise to the big occasion. He first broke into the world's top 200 three years ago, but has won only seven of his 26 matches at tour level. Roger Federer's former coach Peter Lundgren has been working with Bogdanovic recently and John Lloyd, Britain's Davis Cup captain, will be hoping the Swede can help turn his fortunes around, because the team desperately needs more singles talent. As British No 3, Bogdanovic should be pressing hard for a place in the national squad, but he has failed to win a set in any of his three "live" rubbers playing for his country. With Henman likely to follow Greg Rusedski into retirement at some stage in the next year or two and Murray expressing doubts about how to fit in the Davis Cup, the opportunity is there to be taken. Richard Bloomfield, Josh Goodall and Jonathan Marray had their chances to impress in qualifying here this week, but all lost to higher-ranked opponents in the first round.

The need for more British women to break through is even more pressing. At No 169 in the world Keothavong is the highest-ranked Briton. The 23-year-old was unable to build on her win over Japan's Ayumi Morita and lost 6-3, 6-2 yesterday to China's Meng Yuan, the world No 157. Sarah Borwell and Amanda Keen also lost to higher-ranked opponents, while the British No 2 and No 3, Katie O'Brien (world No 189) and Melanie South (No 192), lost to France's Florence Haring (No 279) and the Czech Republic's Michaela Pastikova (No 291) respectively.

At least Britain will have some hope of a reasonable showing in the men's doubles. Jamie Murray, Andy's brother, and his American partner, Eric Butorac, ranked in doubles at No 41 and 43 respectively, have won three tournaments this year and have been hoping to be seeded at Wimbledon. However, with only two wins from their last five events they will probably need a good fortnight here to achieve that goal.

johnnylad · Tennis legend

Navarro-Pastor beat Andujar 8-6 in the third.

He'll have to hope for a LL place

johnnylad · Tennis legend

Laurent Recouderc qualified. Good going considering his ranking...

helki · Futures qualifying

Wow, Stircrazy that certainly is an article that pulls no punches. It really does "tell it how it is". It's hard to believe that we're still relying on a man in his 30's ( okay Andy's injured) to carry the flag in Paris. cry

I know there's a new set-up in place at the LTA and things will have to take their time working through before any real improvements are made but what's been happening over the years? The same old arguments are trotted out, poor weather, tennis is not a No1 sport, it's expensive to play and travel around, lack of sport in schools etc but these reasons apply in other countries who have managed somehow to get more than 2 players in the top 100 and a total of 4 in the top 200.

While being supportive of every player and any success they may have from the ATP tour downwards, can anyone out there see a light at the end of the tunnel? Will the guys at present playing in the Futures get up into the Challenger events? If there's someone with more knowledge than I have on this I'd love to hear.

Meanwhile go for it Tim and fingers crossed for Booty and Stretch in the doubles next week. yawn

-- Edited by helki at 20:56, 2007-05-25

Ratty · County player

Oh yawn. Come on Paul Newman, Neil Harman, and over the next month or so every other hack journalist in town let's slag off the poor old LTA!!!

A few countries punch above their population weight in tennis terms. Argentina. France. Spain. Russia (just - it's population is about 150 million). Sweden. Belgium. Chile. Switzerland. Sweden. That's 9. There may be another 5-6, but no more than that.

There's about 150 countries in the world, so that means that about 135-140 punch at or below their weight. Britain probably punches a little below its weight. So does Germany. Italy. Poland. Mexico. Australia. Well below weight are The Philippines (population 100 million). India (population 600 million). China (population 1,000 million). Brazil. And on and on and on.

Success at pro tennis is largely a numbers game - the more players you have the more likely you are to get pros into the top 100. France and Spain have about the same population as Britain but probably have 5-10 times as many tennis players. The weather's generally better, and their governments spend far more on high standard public sporting facilities (the £30 million annual Wimbledon profit is peanuts compared to the amounts spent by the French government over the years).

The standard of the infrastructure at the average British club is poor, and the playing standard is usually shockingly bad. A typical French club will have several semi-pro standard adult players and a luxurious clubhouse with bar, restaurant, etc.

Answer me this. Do all these previously successful coaches like Sears, Maes, Bohm, Lundgren, Annacone, Tijdeman, all suddenly become useless as soon as they start working for the LTA? Obviously not. Then it can't be the LTA's fault that there are so few top British players, can it. (and by the way, there have been plenty of other good foreign coaches at the LTA over the last 10 years).

Some things just ain't meant to be. British people are really good at some things (pop music, financial-type business, to name a couple), but let's get real folks. We just aren't very good at sport!!!

-- Edited by Ratty at 21:44, 2007-05-25

Count Zero · Tennis legend

if papers like the indpendent and all the others actaully gave tennis a year long coverage and concentrated on more than just the atp tour./dc/slams then perhaps we would have more people playing tennis. but they choose not to as, i guess, they belive people arnt interested. the majority of people dont even know challenger tour exists.