Challenger titles in this millennium

Bladetiger · Pro player

RE: Challenger titles in this millennium

Bladetiger · Pro player

Bladetiger wrote:

Kung Fu Panda wrote:

Alexander Slabinsky will be the next person (barring Boggo, of course) to land a Challenger title in my opinion. I see Baker, Ward and Cox doing it next year if they work hard enough.

Bloomers deserves one, too, but he needs to string together wins again.

I dont see Slabba as being that close, much as he has improved (far beyond my expectations) , but he still tends to follow a good win with a bad loss, which doesnt make you an event winner. I would see a fit again Baker as far more likely or maybe Bloomers or Josh as next most likely.

Ahem!

Count Zero · Tennis legend

i am not sure it shows its better to play atpq or challengers but perhaps it shows consistency is the key. boggo has weeks of brilliance followed by long dry spells, either due to bad performance or injury. if he could have a consistent year i am sure he could break the top 100 but at the moment it just doesnt seem to be happening for him, and doesnt look like it will happen this year either. perhaps 09......

Salmon · Tennis legend

Haha.

I'm glad he's about to prove my prediction wrong, of course.

Vandenburg · Futures level

Do we know if Slabba has a chance of being seeded for the 2 brazil challangers coming up,not really sure how strong they usually are.

Salmon · Tennis legend

Welcome to the forum.

Slabba is due to play only one Challenger in Brazil (plays in India the week after that) and I reckon he will withdraw from that, too.

If he doesn't withdraw, his schedule for a few weeks will have looked like - Ireland, Israel, Britain, Russia, Brazil, India... won't happen!

-- Edited by Kung Fu Panda at 22:10, 2008-07-19

steven · Tennis legend

There's now a full list of Brits who have reached Challenger Finals since 1.1.2000 at http://www.britishtennis.net/gbtop25m/challfin.htm - if I have missed any or you happen to know that the surface is wrong, please let me know.

Vandenburg · Futures level

apart from bogo baker n goodall do slabba and bloomers have a chance of making US open qualies? wats the usual cut off range 260-280??? and whens the cut off ranking date?

Salmon · Tennis legend

Check out Steven's post in this thread - http://britishtennis.activeboard.com/index.spark?forumID=61841&p=3&topicID=18548108&commentPage=23

That's a great list, Steven.

So there was a Challenger on grass in Wolfsburg! But no more, no more...

steven · Tennis legend

No, that would be the first copy-and-paste mistake LOL Corrected.

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

Vandenburg wrote:

apart from bogo baker n goodall do slabba and bloomers have a chance of making US open qualies? wats the usual cut off range 260-280??? and whens the cut off ranking date?

Cut-off for US Open qualifying is at the end of next week.

- Boggo and Goodall will make the cut for sure.
- Bloomfield will make the cut if he wins tomorrow, if not, it will be touch and go as he's defending 5 points next week
- Slabinsky needs to reach the semi finals next week to make the cut, but would be touch and go with a Quarter Final appearance
- Baker is defending 26 points next week, so drops outside of the top 300, so will probably have to reach the Quarter Finals to make the cut.

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

Kung Fu Panda wrote:

Slabba is due to play only one Challenger in Brazil (plays in India the week after that) and I reckon he will withdraw from that, too.

If he doesn't withdraw, his schedule for a few weeks will have looked like - Ireland, Israel, Britain, Russia, Brazil, India... won't happen!

-- Edited by Kung Fu Panda at 22:10, 2008-07-19

Think he's already withdrawn from the Brazil challenger, so after this week in Russia he'll have a week off, before playing the 2 very weak challengers in India (he's seeded for the first one, so surely he'll enter the second, along with Goodall, Eaton and Ward who are all in India as well), and then hopefully off to the US Open qualies.

steven · Tennis legend

Bladetiger wrote:
Someone had told me that Martin Lee reached the top 100 without ever winning a tournament, lots of finals at Challenger and Futures level but no pots, I assume it's right from what you say here, but interesting that Martin peaked at #94 and had a 0-3 record and Boggo is still hoping to reach the holy grail and has an 8-4 challenger final record.

Martin won two Futures (Sunderland in 1998 and then again in 2006) and four Satellite weeks, but no Challengers and of course no ATPs, though he did reach the Newport Final in 2001, beating James Blake in the semis before losing to Neville Godwin.

He only reached eight Challenger semis in his career, winning three and going on to lose the Final in each case, as you've already seen. Boggo has reached 19 Challenger semis, winning 14. (E&OE!)

The reason Martin reached the top 100 fleetingly is that most of his success (the three Challenger Finals, one of the other semis and the Newport Final, which was the equivalent of two low-level Challenger wins on its own) was concentrated into one 12 month period from late July 2000 to early July 2001.

In 2000 and 2002, he finished the year 200th and 180th respectively and didn't finish another year inside the top 250. Two of the other Challenger semis came late in 2001 when he benefited from high seedings.

So in fact the real difference between them is that Boggo is far more consistent year on year, but hasn't had a year when quite as much has gone right all at once.

Looking at their records, I think you'd have to say that Boggo's overall record is streets ahead of Martin's, despite Martin spending a few weeks in that elusive top 100. This isn't supposed to take anything away from what was a massive achievement by Martin, but it might make us appreciate the Bogster a bit more!

-- Edited by steven at 23:06, 2008-07-19

Vandenburg · Futures level

in the grand scheme of things slabba wil win 3 qualifying mathces against top 200 players to get 20 rankings points, if misses the qual he could compete in some weak challanger and be seeded-better chance of ponts maybe?

Bladetiger · Pro player

steven wrote:

Bladetiger wrote:
Someone had told me that Martin Lee reached the top 100 without ever winning a tournament, lots of finals at Challenger and Futures level but no pots, I assume it's right from what you say here, but interesting that Martin peaked at #94 and had a 0-3 record and Boggo is still hoping to reach the holy grail and has an 8-4 challenger final record.
Martin won two Futures (Sunderland in 1998 and then again in 2006) and four Satellite weeks, but no Challengers and of course no ATPs, though he did reach the Newport Final in 2001, beating James Blake in the semis before losing to Neville Godwin.

He only reached eight Challenger semis in his career, winning three and going on to lose the Final in each case, as you've already seen. Boggo has reached 19 Challenger semis, winning 14. (E&OE!)

The reason Martin reached the top 100 fleetingly is that most of his success (the three Challenger Finals, one of the other semis and the Newport Final, which was the equivalent of two low-level Challenger wins on its own) was concentrated into one 12 month period from late July 2000 to early July 2001.

In 2000 and 2002, he finished the year 200th and 180th respectively and didn't finish another year inside the top 250. Two of the other Challenger semis came late in 2001 when he benefited from high seedings.

So in fact the real difference between them is that Boggo is far more consistent year on year, but hasn't had a year when quite as much has gone right all at once.

Looking at their records, I think you'd have to say that Boggo's overall record is streets ahead of Martin's, despite Martin spending a few weeks in that elusive top 100. This isn't supposed to take anything away from what was a massive achievement by Martin, but it might make us appreciate the Bogster a bit more!

-- Edited by steven at 23:06, 2008-07-19

Notwithstanding Martin's Sunderland futures win in 1998, that was the only event he had ever won when he was a top 100 player. I guess that shows you that there is more than one way to skin a cat.

Looking at Martin's record what stands out to me was how many more Main tour events he played than Boggo, and obviously that brings it's rewards.

You also have to remember that Martin had a terrible injury, thankfully Boggo has never had an injury of that severity and long may it continue.

Makes me feel all the more that Boggo should be playing more ATP qualies, than just Challengers, hope he does this year