No UK challengers?

seagull · Hall of fame

RE: No UK challengers?

steven · Tennis legend

That's just pathetic - it means only three Challengers in the UK this year, all at the lowest possible level, since Surby seems to be a 50K no H. If that's supposed to help British tennis, then I'm a Dutchman.

It was bad enough that they used to stage them so crappily (limited advertising except for Surby, apparently no great effort to get youngsters to come along, etc), but cutting Challengers just because they're rubbsih at organising them is so not the answer.

The LTA should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves over this debacle. (but I bet they're not)

Btw another bit of bad planning is making the clay court Futures 15Ks - surely if they want our boys to get a bit more practice on clay, they ought to make these events as low level as possible (10Ks) to limit the chance of all the Brits going out in R1. Maybe the problem in this case is that Futures have to be held in 30K blocks (it's an ITF rule) and there are only two places in GB where it's possible to play on clay. (?)

-- Edited by steven at 21:46, 2008-03-15

john · Top national player

Out of interest, is there ever a crowd at all to any Challenger Finals etc.? In the Corby British Tour, Craig who runs the centre puts stories in the local papers and gets people along to the final. Most of them are juniors who play at the centre and they bring along parents etc. Usually get about 50 people at the final in makeshift stands. Surely if they can make that effort for a British Tour event it shouldn't be too hard to get a few hundred local juniors or schoolkids along to watch a Challenger final.

You never know, it might lift their interest in the sport.

steven · Tennis legend

Exactly! (well done Craig!)

Challengers tend to be a really good standard and highly competitive, making them great for kids to watch.

They can manage it in Germany (have you seen pictures of the stands at the German Challengers?) ... even Nigeria (for a Future!) ... so why not over here?

Nobody can be arsed, seems to be the answer.

wolf · Tennis legend

At the Shrewsbury Challenger last year, the facilities were quite good for a challenger, a restaurant to eat at, a good viewing gallery and seats in between the courts. I went on the Wednesday and there was a crowd of say about 30. If you go into any LTA events at Tipton they are quite well organised, when I went to a 25k final before there was about 60 people watching.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

3 challnegr that is toally patetic. i am a disgusted.

can someone with the revelant skills draft a letter of complaint to the lta? we can all sign, their reasoning behing thsi move is ludicrous.

steven · Tennis legend

wolf wrote:

At the Shrewsbury Challenger last year, the facilities were quite good for a challenger, a restaurant to eat at, a good viewing gallery and seats in between the courts. I went on the Wednesday and there was a crowd of say about 30. If you go into any LTA events at Tipton they are quite well organised, when I went to a 25k final before there was about 60 people watching.

That's still not that many spectators for a Challenger, but it's a start. I thought things were worse than that, remember Toby talking about a couple of Challengers (I think Cardiff was one, not sure) where spectators were clearly not very welcome.

I just think it's something they should be developing - show people that tennis (even tennis in the UK) isn't just the grass court season and that those outside the top 100 can be very good players playing exciting matches too.

Shhh · Challenger level

Hold on guys, I actually dont think the decision to play only 3 challengers is too bad. You must realise we dont have many players who quailfy for them though we get to hand out a few wild cards. We simply dont have the players to compete at that level this year (There'd be no guarantee Boggo or Baker would definately play either if it didn't fit with their schedules).

I hate it when a British Tournament has just a couple of Brits make the 2nd round and then no more after that, its like you're staging the tournament for the benefit of the foreign players.

The girls are actually much stronger at the moment so maybe there tournaments should be increased in quality or quantity, but not the mens, not this year.

I presume the reason we want these tournaments is to better our players, well I hope the money saved is being re-channeled to do that. Thats probably an area I'd happily say how cr*p the LTA are but the number of challengers, backed by a mix of 18 futures, I actually think they've got right this time.

Sorry. Does this different view make me a traitor!

steven · Tennis legend

Those are all fair points, but I would argue that the Brits do have a pretty good record of punching above their weight in home Challengers (quite a bit better than in home Futures, in fact), making them better 'value for money', and I really don't like the fact that just one Challenger outside the grass court season helps perpetuate the myth that tennis is only played in June and July.

The switch to a mix of Futures levels is definitely an improvement though.

-- Edited by steven at 12:06, 2008-03-16

Count Zero · Tennis legend

booo, hiss traitor - not just that i (skim) read your letter too, mil****!!

havent had a chnace to give it full thought yet tho, too busy over the weekend, will give it the attention it deserevs when i can mate.

MrBaseliner · Social player

I don't think it's a terrible thing they've been dropped, only Bogdanovic used to get anything from them really. It just got depressing watching all these endless French and Czech players I've never heard of nicking all the points, best to do more 10ks where our young players actually have a shot at winning a couple of rounds. We should be holding one every week like the Spaniards.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

short term maybe the french and so forth will get the points, but what about our guys like Seator etc, a WC there will let them see what the next step is, ok they may lose, but they will learn from it as well.

also what about getting others interested in the sport, you are right only boggo consistently benefitted, but here we have one of the countries top players reguarly reaching the finals/winning a home tournament and the coverage of it was diddly squat (at best a half a***d press release from the lta - only on lta.org, and maybe an article in BT mag so onyl pepeople already into tennis get that, or a mention in the times if it coincides with another tennis storey they are publishing) . A bit of publicty may have got a bit more attention on the sport which get more kids into it.......

Wimbldeon etc is not the time to attract kids to tennis imo, have you seen the courts at the time, your local park will be packed dawn to dusk and people will either be put off cause they cant play or interest will die down as soon as Fed wins his umpteen championship point, maybe if you can get the kids picking up a racquet when they can get plenty of court time they may stay.

steven · Tennis legend

Very well put.

Salmon · Tennis legend

Wow. The US has so many players who hardly ever play outside their country and still get inside the top 150. Same goes for so many Spaniards and a few others...

This is such bad a move. If playing abroad made people better players, the top 200 would be flocked by people from countries with fewer tournaments, isn't it?

MrBaseliner · Social player

To be fair those US and Spanish players are probably better than our players. Results and rankings don't really lie at the end of the day, no matter how many excuses we make for our players. Futures is where it's at for our players at the moment.