No UK challengers?

Salmon · Tennis legend

RE: No UK challengers?

MrBaseliner · Social player

No...I'm a realist.

Salmon · Tennis legend

Surely you agree that Bloomers and Boggo do better in GB than abroad?

Maybe not Boggo to that extent, but Bloomers is twice as good in GB than outside. He hasn't done too much outside GB in the last few years barring a Futures title in Belgium and a semi in Rennes (and a semi in Dublin, but that's almost home). Compare that with a Challenger final, quite a few Futures finals and a precious win at Wimbledon. I don't see how his ranking wouldn't be higher if he played more in GB.

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

If we had the same number of challengers as USA/Spain do then I'd expect our boys to be ranked higher than they are now, but not too much.

Boggo probably would be on the verge of the top 100, but wouldn't be playing most of them as I'd think he'd still try ATP qualies when he could

Bloomers and Goodall would probably be top 200 (but not too much higher), while Baker never plays them anyway so I doubt it would affect his ranking too much, but he'd probably be top 200

The Slabinsky/Kasiri/Ward/Seator/Skupski lot would be higher ranked as well as they'd probably play a lot of the events and would get enough wins (or would qualify each week) to have them maybe 50-100 places higher in the rankings at best

Shhh · Challenger level

I still disagree with whats being said here. I dont see what the point is at staging a more tournaments that may hike our home players ranking up, only for them to not be able to live up to it when they play elsewhere?

At the moment, our current bunch of 1990-ers appear to be trying to qualify abroad in Spain and Turkey. Matches have been won but, points are not really being picked up. For a player to fight his way up this way we are almost sure to have a winner. The quantity may drop, but the quality of whats left should rise. I think thats supposed to be the theory?

Salmon · Tennis legend

The youngsters are suffering badly because of some of the worst scheduling I've seen in my life and this is the latest blunder. They should be made to play on surfaces which suit them as that's where points are.

I have little doubt that Cox and Evo would have reached a Futures final or two given where they were in 2006, had they been made to play in GB Futures week in and out. That's what the Spanish do all the time - say no to Juniors and play Futures on your strongest surfaces from a very young age. If nothing else, we should be imitating them, given how they've taken over the top 200 in the last few years. But no, we'll make them run around the world playing Juniors on clay, publish stories in the newspaper about how they are the next [insert favourite top 10 player here] and cut off their funding when they are 21 or so, citing something rubbish like lack of motivation.

Anyway, they are very talented individuals and I'm sure that they'll bounce back, no matter what they play on.

I am yet to hear of the concept of 'home disadvantage', for that matter. I can't think of anyone in the top 20 barring Nalby who comes from a nation holding many tournaments, yet played away from their home (Murray was quite at home in Spain) to a major extent when they were young. And I don't think that there are many like Nalby in the top 100.

Are Roddick, Blake or Ferrer suffering because they rarely ventured out of their home nations?

For that matter, I am deeply interested in knowing the name of any country that has loads of tournaments but sends their young players to play on some alien surface. The Americans don't, the Spaniards don't, the French don't, the Italians don't, the Australians don't. They are all better off than we are so I don't know how this'll do us any good. Where as all countries are trying to have more tournaments, we are hell bent on reducing ours. What joy!

-- Edited by Arka at 11:08, 2008-03-19

Shhh · Challenger level

Taking Spaniards as an exmaple, they can play a lot of futures in their own country on both clay and hard courts, which is what they will face a lot of on the main tour. Our events have a lot of grass and indoor which are not as common. Plus their home events are stronger and therefore more competitive.

The ladies, who are doing well at the moment, have an increase of bigger prize money events which I presume we'd all agree with. At present, I dont think the British men justify having so many at that level, we do have 18 futures scheduled which to me, seems about right.

-- Edited by Shhh at 19:49, 2008-03-19

Salmon · Tennis legend

Why can't the LTA have more Challengers on hard courts and clay, then? Won't that help far, far more than cutting down the number of tournaments players can play?

I'm sure that we have the facilities to host a few outdoor Challengers. One good thing is that we don't lack the money.

-- Edited by Arka at 08:06, 2008-03-20