BRITISH SUCCESSES 2008

DJ · County player

RE: BRITISH SUCCESSES

DJ · County player

Sorry for the delay, folks; several hours of research and compilation of results and rankings, followed by more hours of fighting with Activeboard have now allowed me to list Alex's Canadian win and the many new career-highs for the post-Wimbledon week, July 7.
Watch this space for more updates - but don't hold your breath!

Count Zero · Tennis legend

"ALEX BOGDANOVITCH"

Ouch

DJ · County player

Sorry, Count, I've clearly been away too long!

DJ · County player

July 14 new career-bests now up, plus Maniel Bains' first-ever Futures title, a doubles in Kazakhstan.

-- Edited by DJ at 23:29, 2008-07-29

DJ · County player

July 21 new career-bests are now up. Of particular note are:
Alex Slabinsky breaking through into the 200s at 291,
another big jump - 52 spots - for Burnham Arlidge to 1159,
and, in doubles, a huge leap of 259 places for Chris Hooshyar into the top 1000 at 915,
a debut in the charts, at the age of 36, for Seb Jackson in 1127th position,
and the appearance of another Skupski, little brother Neal, at 1642.

Do any of our statisticians know of anyone else making their 'breakthrough' at 36, or later?

DJ · County player

James Ward's first-ever Futures victory is now added: do many players reach as high as 459 without ever having made a final, or is James a rarity in this?

steven · Tennis legend

I guess it must have happened, but the only current GB player I could think of who might have was Gregory Howe, who got his first ever ranking point in Tunisia last year after failing to get one in over 75 previous attempts, but I've just checked and he got his first point 5 months before he turned 36.

steven · Tennis legend

DJ wrote:
James Ward's first-ever Futures victory is now added: do many players reach as high as 459 without ever having made a final, or is James a rarity in this?

I can't give you a definitive answer to that, but to get an idea of how likely it is to have happened, I did a quick skim through the 400-500 range on http://www.kuratorn.se/049//Tennisfacts/entry_ratings/nr_301_500.txt while on a 20-minute long (and really exciting, as you'll have guessed LOL) phone call.

This reveals a few players who are currently in that range without having reached a Final in the last 12 months, but there seems to be nobody above James who has neither a Futures W or F against their name nor a points score in double figures, e.g. Marach doesn't have a Final in his best 18, but is a former top 100 player who is climbing back up by playing Challengers and ATP qualifying, not Futures, and Statham has 5 losing semis in his total, but one was a Challenger semi worth 24 points.

Ricardas Berankis (WR 473) has no Finals and a top score of 8 too, but his top four scores (8, 7, 7, 7) come from Challenger R2s, while Rodrigo Grilli (WR 488) has an 8 from a Challenger R2 but no other score above 4 - 7 losing semis (James had 6 in the last 12 months) and 5 QFs at Futures level in the last 12 months.

-- Edited by steven at 12:27, 2008-07-30

DJ · County player

Thanks, Steven, for the usual erudite and fascinating response!

DJ · County player

No update, yet, for the singles rankings for this week (28/07), as the ATP rankings haven't been updated - there's a table for '28-Jul-08', but it's identical with that for '21-Jul-08'!

The doubles rankings have been updated and show:
another marginal climb for Ken Skupski as he approaches the top 250 (at 269),
a jump of 42 places for Alex Slabinsky to 447,
a huge rise of over 300 spots for Maniel Bains, placing him in the top 1000 for the first time at 965,
and a return to the charts, with a new high of 1464, for Luke Campbell.

DJ · County player

The Magical Murray Masters milestone is listed! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

DJ · County player

The first ranking lists of August show five new career highs for British players, all now listed in the 'official' charts at the beginning of this thread.
In doubles, there are marginal rises for Alex Slabinsky, to 445, and for Luke Campbell, to 1463. In singles, Chris Eaton climbs another few places to 383, while there are big jumps for James Ward, up 50 spots, or c.11%, to 407, and an improvement of 25% on his previous best for Andy Murray, now at number 6 in the world.

DJ · County player

We have three victories to report so far this week, with two more British men playing in finals later today!

David Brewer and Ian Flanagan renewed their old partnership to take the doubles event in Wrexham, where Dan Evans annexed his first senior title; in India, Josh Goodall and James Ward won the doubles in a Challenger event.

DJ · County player

... and a fourth title for the British men - Ross Hutchins and his American partner, Jim Thomas, won the doubles in the top-class Challenger tournament in Spain. What a week!!