MD QF

SEATOR (GBR) / SMETHURST (GBR) v KLIER (GER) / LOJDA (CZE) 4

Arka wrote:

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That would have made me laugh badly had it not been such a serious issue, Steven!

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I know it is. The point I was really trying to make is that from the outside, it looks like they go from 'big idea' to 'big idea' and the reason that they all tend to fail is that they never think them through properly. In other words, when you think 'let's try this, it seemd to work in the past', the next thing to do is to say 'ok, let's have a look at why it worked' rather than 'let's insist everyone does it and ask questions later'.

It's a bit like the way some of the coaching horror stories (e.g. the change to Jamie Murray's forehand or whatever it was when he was a teenager) give the impression that if something works with player X, they'll try to force player Y to change their natural game to do exactly the same, without taking into account that player Y may be built completely differently, left-handed rather than right-handed, have completely different strengths, etc.

I repeat that this is just the impression you get from the outside. It can't really be as simplistic as this, but I bet there's a little truth in there.

Edward's and Dan's quarter-final victory gives Dan his first doubles ranking points - first of many, we hope. Edward moves up a few places, too.
Their semi-final, against another unseeded pair, is one of just four matches scheduled for tomorrow.

Thanks for posting. When there's a really weird result, it's always good to find out why it happened, and we don't get the chance to find out that often. Good luck in the doulbes semi, at least you and Dan are salvaging something from the trip

As someone who enjoys doubles, I'd like to add my congrats to Edward and Daniel.  I hope they manage to overcome the two Romanians.

Just in case anyone thought that the LTA had seen some sense...


When you see that your players aren't doing well on Futures on clay, what do you do? Of course - make them play Juniors on clay!! Coxy and Smethurst are due to play a tournament in Istres later this month and I'm afraid they'll be made to play Juniors on clay for the next two weeks as well - so that they can get into RG Juniors.

Which means that they'll miss the next British Futures, too.





Small positive is that Evans is not wasting his time any more. He has a different coach, and it seems like they don't think it is necessary for him to play Juniors any more.

-- Edited by Arka at 07:10, 2008-03-28

Small positive is that Evans is not wasting his time any more. He has a different coach, and it seems like they don't think it is necessary for him to play Juniors any more.

Dan is on the entry list for the Nottingham G4 starting next week. He's ranked 32 - the next highest ranked player is 145.