Week 24 - Queen's Club ATP - London

Count Zero · Tennis legend

RE: Week 24 - Queen's Club ATP - London

johnnylad · Tennis legend

dear oh dear - this is from today's times

Daniel Evans will have to wait some time before he can indulge in such fancies. His 6-1, 6-1 defeat on the centre court yesterday by Xavier Malisse, of Belgium, was a stark indication of how steep the learning curve is for the 18-year-old from Birmingham. When Malisse was told that Evans is Britain's leading junior, his disbelief was evident. He does not have a shot that hurts you, the Belgian said. He only slices his backhand and he kept serving straight to me.

Evans may have earned £2,734 from the experience and he did thank Chris Kermode, the tournament director, for the leg-up, but he will lose some of that for petulantly hitting the ball over the old clubhouse during the match. At least he dashed off to compete in the tournament being staged on Wimbledon's practice courts that will give one Briton a wild card into qualifying.

James · Satellite level

johnnylad wrote:

dear oh dear - this is from today's times

Daniel Evans will have to wait some time before he can indulge in such fancies. His 6-1, 6-1 defeat on the centre court yesterday by Xavier Malisse, of Belgium, was a stark indication of how steep the learning curve is for the 18-year-old from Birmingham. When Malisse was told that Evans is Britain's leading junior, his disbelief was evident. He does not have a shot that hurts you, the Belgian said. He only slices his backhand and he kept serving straight to me.

He was probably shocked that the interviewer could get his/her facts so wrong, and quickly corrected him/her by saying that going by the senior ATP rankings our top 'junior' is Daniel Cox followed by Alex Ward, and that Macrus Willis and Dan Cox are our top two ranked ITF junior players. Is my disbelief also evident? The incompetencies are just so strikingly obvious..

Akhenaten · Pro player

But the LTA must believe he is Britain's leading junior - that why he got the WC ahead of Cox, etc.

Salmon · Tennis legend

Still, the reporters should research before they ask such things as they get paid for it. Or else they should stick to asking "who would you like to dedicate this Slam to?" kind of questions to Nadal or Fed.

-- Edited by Greenleaf at 10:33, 2008-06-11

Salmon · Tennis legend

A smart response from Evo yesterday:

Evans collected £2,734 for losing in the first round, but defended the often criticised policy of giving wild cards to British players.

"It's not my choice if I get a wild card, if somebody said to you, 'Do you want £200? would you say no? It's just natural to take what you're given," he said.

"Sometimes you have to qualify and sometimes you get something given to you. On this occasion, I got it given to me. I don't think we're given too much. I think some people jump on that bandwagon of British tennis players don't work hard enough."

Whatever, I'm not bothered about the result - one match means nothing and their are loads of top 100 players who don't pick more than 2 games in a match at Tour level. What did people think of his game, by the way?

And congrats to Rich on giving Gonzo a good match by the look of the scoreboard. Hopefully he'll impress in Nottingham qualies (if he plays) and get the WC at Wimbly.

The Hoose · Satellite level

Greenleaf wrote:

A smart response from Evo yesterday:

Evans collected £2,734 for losing in the first round, but defended the often criticised policy of giving wild cards to British players.

"It's not my choice if I get a wild card, if somebody said to you, 'Do you want £200? would you say no? It's just natural to take what you're given," he said.

"Sometimes you have to qualify and sometimes you get something given to you. On this occasion, I got it given to me. I don't think we're given too much. I think some people jump on that bandwagon of British tennis players don't work hard enough."

Whatever, I'm not bothered about the result - one match means nothing and their are loads of top 100 players who don't pick more than 2 games in a match at Tour level. What did people think of his game, by the way?

And congrats to Rich on giving Gonzo a good match by the look of the scoreboard. Hopefully he'll impress in Nottingham qualies (if he plays) and get the WC at Wimbly.

I'm not sure it was the smartest thing to say, particularly since people have tended only to quote the first part, which on its own sounds as if Evans thought the organisers were pretty stupid, giving him a huge gift that he hadn't earned.

-- Edited by The Hoose at 11:15, 2008-06-11

Salmon · Tennis legend

That can't hurt him anyway, as the LTA get Queen's next year.

And to be honest, the organisers are rather stupid...

I wonder what changes we will have, though. The field could be weaker as the LTA isn't very likely to pay the huge amounts for appearence that people like Nadal ask, although that is offset by the fact that the grass season is tiny and players need some practice before Wimbly, appearence money or not.

-- Edited by Greenleaf at 11:29, 2008-06-11

XCW4EVA · County player

I have to say i thought Xaviers thoughts on the subject were spot on, i hate to say it but if that performance was supposed to be one of best juniors we are in a spot of bother. Plus he seems to be caring more about money then he actual tourny from that snippet of an interview we just had.

Salmon · Tennis legend

You don't expect someone to say everything in a snippet, do you? Then each sentence would be 2000 words long.

He also said:

Asked if the scoreline showed how far he had to go, Evans said: I dont think its that far. Its just a marker. I know if I keep doing what Im doing, theres no reason why I cant be here next year qualifying, then
playing him again with maybe a different result.

Obviously theres a lot of difference. But its not something Im majorly worried about.

And he surely said a lot else. It's dumb to judge someone's views by reading a few lines from a paper. Did you see his post match interview? You can't say unless you see the full thing.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

hoose has a valid point, you have to be very careful what you say as the media are great at taking things out of context. the infamous murray world cup quote.
i agree its is dumb to judge from a few lines in a paper but unfortunatly people do.

Salmon · Tennis legend

Hmm, fair enough.

Not that Andy cares.

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

I think we can understand the point Malisse is making though - he's won ATP events, he's been a top 20 player, he reached Grand Slam semi's, so he obviously knows what a top player looks like and how they play on court.

So for him to not think anything of Evans's game tells us there is something worrying, as even if he's not top of the junior rankings, the LTA thought he was the best, and yet a top player thinks there is nothing good about his game.

I suppose he has a decent point as it was very obvious with the serve where he was going, and the commentators kept making reference to the top he was serving everything to the backhand (and that's Malisse's best shot!!!), and hitting everything to that side as well. Now I think about it I don't remember him doing a lot else with the backhand other than slicing it, and although he looked as if there was potential to move up the rankings, he didn't look as if there was anything to his game that would make him a top 250 player, let alone a top 100.

And if that is the best junior we have, then Malisse's reaction of surprise is acceptable, as maybe our juniors aren't as good as we thought they might be.

That said, he was excepetionally nervous and that must have affected him, plus he is still a work in progress, but only winning 2 games is not a good sign

Salmon · Tennis legend

Thanks for the description.

One match tells nothing, though. I saw Ferrer against Monfils the other week and if I hadn't seen Ferrer before, I would have said that he's ranked around 250 at best. Bad days will be there, and there's a bigger chance of them being there when you're ranked below 500 and have a WC because of the nervousness factor that you mention.

steven · Tennis legend

I spent a long, enjoyable day at Queen's yesterday then took 11 hours to sleep it off! I wanted to comment on the WC stuff while it was fresh in my mind (see another thread) and have a fair bit of work to catch up on, but I'll start posting reports from courtside and pics tonight.