No UK challengers?

Count Zero · Tennis legend

No UK challengers?

Silver · County player

Surbiton best still be there!!! It's like... tradition! :( Sometimes the LTA cannot understand how to put one foot in front of the other, though, so not a huge surprise that they're buggering up the Futures Calendar too.

steven · Tennis legend

Always clever the LTA. First they changed all home Futures from 10K to 15K just as we were about to have nobody in the ranking range where players are most likely to benefit, hence virtually all the points from 15Ks ending up going to overseas players.

Then, just as we are about to start getting some more players moving into the top 500 (and hopefully upwards from there), they cut the number of UK Challengers.

Don't they realise that when deciding which type of tournaments are most appropriate to the home players, they should look at what's likely to happen in the year in question instead of what has happened in the previous year?

Drew · Jan 9, 2008

I have written to the LTA tonight to see if they care to comment.

imoen · Admin: Moderator+Tennis Legend

thanks Drew, hopefully we learn something from them. Such a shame that they're cutting the number of challengers, and seemingly out of the blue as well

jezzauk · Lower Club Player

It'll be awful if the Nottingham challengar on grass is dropped, it'd be such a waste of resource for those courts to not be used again. Same goes for Manchester as well really.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

i think the 3 grass ones are the most established so expect them to stay. would be mad to drop them.....hmm.. this is the lta tho.....

James · Satellite level

Does anybody have the 2008 LTA calender?

What's the use of having a brand new flashy website if its filled with old information...

Simon · Lower Club Player

I agree, Steven. They got the level of events all wrong last year with virtually no-one making the main draw of futures by right. That seems to have been corrected this year (for Futures at the expense of Challengers), but they do seem to have to decide their programme early and are not thinking enough about where the players will be a year on.

I always think it is a pity that there is so much hype around Wimbledon and the ATP/WTA events before it, but nothing very visible the rest of the year, except the Masters tour in December. I suppose we have few people who would qualify for an event at the moment but a higher level Challenger or two at other times of the year might keep the interest going and provide a challenge to up and coming players.

Drew · Jan 10, 2008

No reply from the LTA as yet....will chase later.

mjd · Challenger qualifying

I'm Not sure whats happening with GBR futures - the ITF calendar shows first 6 as $10k.
Any player who got points last year will lose points (and cash) even if they equal last years results.

ITF Calendar 2008 (from ITF)

seagull · Hall of fame

There is a $15K in April - be nice to see LTA actually update their own calender once in a while

seagull · Hall of fame

Still no sign of any UK Challengers in the whole of May - just 2 $15K's...very strange

Count Zero · Tennis legend

i dont think there were ever any in may, just cardiff in april.

the next one along is surbs, then 2 after wimby (hopefully in the next update), afaik those 3 aren't ones that rotate so i expect them to stay. have to wonder about the 2/3 that we normally have later in the year tho.

also valenica challenger has gone, so along with cardiff, the 2 events boggo got most of his points at have been dropped, when it rains it pours

imoen · Admin: Moderator+Tennis Legend

have we heard from the LTA about the reason for this yet? It's just seems really bizarre and counter-productive.