Keep using that word and I'll stop checking these things out, even when it's this easy to do ...

This is quite interesting through, especially since I was pretty sure you were only partially correct. Leaving out Andy and those who have retired, here's a summary of how the rest of the top 12 Brits have done on clay in the last year or so:

Boggo: R1 loss at the Miami Challenger this year, has reached QR2 at RG the last 3 years and played the Prague & Zagreb Challengers on clay in the run-up to RG last year, losing in R1 (but winning a set) in both cases; he reached the Final of a GB Future on clay in 2004, losing to Monfils, before beating him in R1 in another GB Future on clay the following week then going out in the QFs. Has played a few more clay court Challengers over the years but usually loses in R1.

Baker: R1 loss in the Florianopolis Challenger last year, before that he played on clay a couple of times each year, with a SF in a Future in Turkey in 2005 his best result.

Bloomers: R1 losses in RG qualifying and at the San Remo Challenger on clay last year, surprisingly plays a couple of clay tournaments each year (less surprisingly, without much success) - once reached a clay QF in Rwanda in 2002, where he lost to Genius Chidzikwe from Zimbabwe ...

Goodall: lost in QR1 at RG last year, but took a set off Navarro who was ranked around 100 at the time - he had obviously learnt a bit from his abject 1 & 3 thrashing by Semjan (never been inside the top 400) in a GB clay court Future earlier that month, which was his first clay court appearance since a dire series of losses in Futures qualifying on clay back in 2003.

Slabba: 5 clay tournaments in SUD, BUL, CZE (1 QF, 4 R1 losses)

Kasiri: 1 R1 loss in a clay court tournament in ESP last year, the first time he had ventured onto clay since 2004.

Seator: currently the Brit who plays on clay the most frequently (only James Ward even gets close) - he has played more than a dozen clay court tournaments in the last year, reaching QFs in Uganda & Rwanda, SFs in El Salvador (last month) and sandwiching a FINAL in a Polish Future last August in among some R1 losses there.

Ward: 10 clay tournaments in ESP (1 SF, 1 QF, 2 R2, 1 Q+R1, 4 R1 losses including Valencia ATP) & GBR (1 R1 loss)

Eaton: the only times he ventured onto clay were in May 2006 in Romania (2 R1 losses) and a year earlier in a GB clay court Satellite (2 R2 losses, 2 R1 losses)

Imo i dont think having clay courts will give us a nadal etc, you cant train up that.

but thats not the aim, its the fact that we dont have players like calleri, acasuso, well name any other player between 25-75 in the world? we either seem to have top 15'ers or big arv's, boggo's etc maybe having a more rounded up bringing on clay would mean that the leap could be made.

especaily given the current disparity in tournments, it is almost as if a 'hard' point is worth more than a 'clay' point as they are much rarer, but they dont make a difference.

i am sure if you look some of those top 100 players barely ever leave south america.

-- Edited by Count Zero at 10:12, 2008-02-12

man we should run the lta!

instead of ditching the home events just make them clay, that would surely help. players will be playing on a uncomfortable surafce in a comfortable enviroment which is surely a good compromise.

i think we had the geek thread a while ago, where most of us turned out to be geeks :)

I have a student loan and access to an overdraft..

So I'm in!

steven wrote:

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The LTA's balance sheet value is over £200 million, so even if it were possible to buy control of it, I'm afraid it would probably take most of the student loans in the country to do it.

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Oooh, I don't know.... we should be able to get a loan for £200 million, find a property company who'll pay us £250 million to develop Roehampton as posh yuppie housing with a nice gym attached and pay back the loan.  we'd be left with the LTA organisation: move em all into my spare bedroom and bob's your uncle!