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steven


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20 GB men in the top 500 two years ago today
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Today is the 2-year anniversary of the Monday in October 2005 when the ranking list showed that we had 20 players in the top 500 for the first time in years (possibly the first time ever) and things were beginning to look quite bright.

Two years on, we have just 9 players in the top 500, with that number due to drop to another multi-year low of 8 next Monday when Mackin drops out, including only 6 active players. Moreover, it will drop to 7 in the top 500 including just 5 actives if Jonny is unable to come back from injury before more of his points drop off.

Positions that week and what has happened since can be seen below:

28 # Henman, Tim - retired sleepy.gif
37 Rusedski, Greg - retired sleepy.gif
70 * Murray, Andrew - now 54 places higher at 16 biggrin
185 Parmar, Arvind - retired sleepy.gif
212 Hilton, Mark - retired sleepy.gif
214 * Bogdanovic, Alex - now 62 places higher at 152 smile
258 # Mackin, Alan - retired sleepy.gif
259 Delgado, Jamie - retired from singles sleepy.gif
265 * Marray, Jonathan - now 210 places lower at 475 and has been out injured for months cry
286 * Bloomfield, Richard - now 18 places higher at 268 but on the slide blankstare
291 Sherwood, David - retired sleepy.gif
325 Auckland, James - retired from singles sleepy.gif
367 * Baker, Jamie - now 139 places higher at 228 biggrin
374 * Goodall, Joshua - now 66 places higher at 308 smile after getting into the low 200s then dropping back
380 Smith, Matthew - now 488 places lower at 868 bleh
391 # Childs, Lee - retired sleepy.gif
456 Banks, Andrew - retired sleepy.gif
462 Lee, Martin - retired sleepy.gif
478 Fleming, Colin - went back to university sleepy.gif
500 Hanlin, Matthew - dropped out of the top 500 the following week, now retired sleepy.gif

* = still active (or injured) in the top 500
# = still in the top 500 but retired


In summary, the 14 we have lost from our top 500 actives are:


2 retired over 30 - Greg, Tigger
8 retired under 30 - Banks, Hanlin, Hilton, Sherwood, Lee, Big Arv, Mackin, Childs
2 retired from singles - Del, Aucks
1 went back to uni - Fleming
1 active is no longer in the top 500 - Smith


What of the players who looked like they might also get to the top 500 before long two years ago? Well, not a single British player has entered the top 500 from outside it in the last two years, even temporarily. Back then, the players in the 500-750 range were:


Chris Lewis - now retired
Neil Bamford - now quite a bit lower
Tom Burn - retired (?)
Tom Rushby - still around the same place he was then
Andrew Kennaugh - recently dropped out of the top 500
Morgan Phillips - could have made it if it hadn't been for a horrible knee injury, now out of the top 1000


Let's hope we'll be able to look back in another two years and see that the current situation was as bad as it got ...



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GB on a shirt, Davis Cup still gleaming, 79 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming ... 29/11/2015 that dream came true!

GB top 25s (ranks, whereabouts) & stats - http://www.britishtennis.net/stats.html
Madeline


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Indeed! Or even in one year!

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Salmon


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This makes terrible reading. cry.gif

Seator, Kasiri, Ward and Morgan will be there in the top 500 next year unless things go badly for them. I also hope to see Skupski and at least two of our current 18 and under players in there.




Madeline, your signature is brilliant! rofl.gif

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steven


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Tennisnow wrote:

The good news is that within two years, somehow I doubt that more than half of the 20 who are on the cusp now of equaling this record* will be retired as was the case in '05.

Josh G, Bloomers, Jamie B and Boggo have already/should retire within the next two years. The average age is a lot lower now than eight years ago.

*has this been verified as the most Brits inside the top 500?

Definitely the most this century. Before that, I've only got year-end numbers (see http://bit.ly/17Zstby) but from those figures, it looks very unlikely that there have been 20 Brits in the top 500 mid-year at any time since the 1970s are they may not have been 20 Brits in the top 500 even then.

The biggest unknown is 1975, when there were 19 Brits in the top 500 at the year end (out of 428 players on the ranking list in total) but the mid-year rankings are either missing (though they were probably only published intermittently back then) or many of the players are clearly missing in the lists that are archived - this missing players phenomenon is even true of the year-end rankings around 1980. 

Obviously, far fewer countries were producing more than a handful of players back then, so even if there were 20 Brits in the top 500 at any point in the 1970s, it is far more of an achievement these days.



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GB on a shirt, Davis Cup still gleaming, 79 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming ... 29/11/2015 that dream came true!

GB top 25s (ranks, whereabouts) & stats - http://www.britishtennis.net/stats.html
john


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One from the olden days for Bob in Spain/Brazil/Croatia/2005

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Bob in Spain


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john wrote:

One from the olden days for Bob in Spain/Brazil/Croatia/2005

Wow. Awesome stats.  If we make it to20 in the top 500 again this time (maybe in the next couple of weeks) let's hope that in 2 years time we are not looking back at such a depressing set of figures again.



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steven


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Thanks for digging that up, John. At least my "Let's hope we'll be able to look back in another two years and see that the current situation was as bad as it got ..." wish was pretty much fulfilled.



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GB on a shirt, Davis Cup still gleaming, 79 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming ... 29/11/2015 that dream came true!

GB top 25s (ranks, whereabouts) & stats - http://www.britishtennis.net/stats.html
indiana


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Thank, John. With the current situation, great digging !

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Tennisnow


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The good news is that within two years, somehow I doubt that more than half of the 20 who are on the cusp now of equaling this record* will be retired as was the case in '05.

Josh G, Bloomers, Jamie B and Boggo have already/should retire within the next two years. The average age is a lot lower now than eight years ago.

*has this been verified as the most Brits inside the top 500?

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paulisi


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Looking at the live rankings Josh G is at 506, so it's not going to happen anytime soon. Especially with Oli's injury, unless something suprising happens such as Dom Inglot making some more ATP singles wins or Broady getting some big points.

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Coup Droit


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Bob in Spain wrote:
john wrote:

One from the olden days for Bob in Spain/Brazil/Croatia/2005

Wow. Awesome stats.  If we make it to 20 in the top 500 again this time (maybe in the next couple of weeks) let's hope that in 2 years time we are not looking back at such a depressing set of figures again.

 Couldn't help looking at this, as we sit - today, 2018 - still with only 10 men in the top 500..... crycrycry



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Bob in Spain


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Coup Droit wrote:
Bob in Spain wrote:
john wrote:

One from the olden days for Bob in Spain/Brazil/Croatia/2005

Wow. Awesome stats.  If we make it to 20 in the top 500 again this time (maybe in the next couple of weeks) let's hope that in 2 years time we are not looking back at such a depressing set of figures again.

 Couldn't help looking at this, as we sit - today, 2018 - still with only 10 men in the top 500..... crycrycry

Thanks for cheering me up CD disbelief



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indiana


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We were so very close to these 20 in the top 500 in 2013. Yes, 10 now and in a couple of weeks that's quite likely to be 8 with the points that Farquharson and Klein drop on 30/07 

Let's hope for continued good stuff by our top guys and for Andy's successful return but the drop off of some and the lack of real breakthroughs from the next group has left us so very short of depth ( a matter clearly of more concern to some than others ) and probably really looking to current juniors for some of our next top 500ers.



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Bob in Spain


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I do think the numbers are slightly more distorted now by the number of 18-22 year olds that are playing college tennis in the USA. I am sure a few of these may have broken into the top 500 had they dived straight into the Futures circuit.

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Toby


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Croatia, population 4.25m has 9 men in the top 500 and reached the World Cup Final, I wonder if their tennis chief gets a six figure bonus?

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