- Josh Goodall breaks in top the top 200 - James Ward breaks into the top 400 - a 216-place rise takes Dan Evans into the top 750 (with more to come next Monday) - Matt Illingworth breaks into the top 800
Within the GB top 25 (see (see http://www.britishtennis.net/gbtop25m/2008wk34.htm) there are also career highs for Slabba, Chris Eaton, Dan Cox, James Feaver and Josh Milton, while outside the top 25, Jonny Kinsella, Burnham Arlidge, Gregory Howe and Ashley Watling have leapt up to new career highs, and there may be one or two others that have edged CHs as well. That's at least a (lucky) 13 CHs this week!
What a difference 17 weeks makes too. At the start of week 17 (see http://www.britishtennis.net/gbtop25m/2008wk17.htm), more of our top 25 players were down in 2008 than were up, but some great points-gathering since then (mainly in the last two months) and a clearout of some of the retired and less active players as their grass court points came off means that at the start of week 34, no less than 19 of our top 25 men are up on the year - 2 by over 500 places, 6 more by more than 200 and 6 more (14 in total) up by more than 100!
The only players in the GB top 25 who are down on the year are:
- Jamie Baker (serious illness) - Tigger (retired) - Miles Kasiri (seems to have vanished off the face of the earth) - Myles Blake (will almost be flat on the year when last week's Futures points go on next Monday) - Flan (ditto) - David Brewer (within 3% of where he was at the start of the year)
With no points to come off this week and a few to go on, it'll be looking even better next Monday too!
None of this means GB is out of the woods - we still only have 3 men in the top 200 and 8 men in the top 500, down from a peak of 20 in October 2005, but it's certainly a step in the right direction!
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GB on a shirt, Davis Cup still gleaming, 79 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming ... 29/11/2015 that dream came true!
Good stats and an encouraging read Steven. After such a dire time, GB-Men certainly feel to be on the up at various different levels. What I am most pleased about is that we have a handful competing at challenger level again, the weeks entries made awful reading at stages earlier in the year.
is certinaly feels much more encorgaing. several more players starting to make that step up to challenger lvl and josh looks to be getting back to his best (well past his best obviusly), will be interesting to see if they can keep it going on the tougher challengers later in the year. despite still being a long way off his CH boggo looks to be getting back on track, picking up some good challenger wins, and if he can contiune like that then should keep heading in the right direction, only shame is that jamie apears tobe still struggling, but lets hope he cna turn it aorund soon.
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Count Zero - Creator of the Statistical Tennis Extrapolation & Verification ENtity or, as we like to call him, that steven.
Whether the ratio of the numbers of ranked players at each point is the same as the ratio of the numbers of pros depends on whether there were any changes in the ranking system that may have affected how many players were ranked at any point.
I'd guess that the further you go back, the more common it was for players to play in national tournaments and the less likely it was for them to play in international tournaments, simply because travel to different countries was so much harder then than it is now.
-- Edited by steven at 16:28, 2008-08-18
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GB on a shirt, Davis Cup still gleaming, 79 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming ... 29/11/2015 that dream came true!
the point i was trying to get at is with each year the lvl of the sport will raise a step, not just be higher numbers, but also by those numbers in them selves having higher quality.
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Count Zero - Creator of the Statistical Tennis Extrapolation & Verification ENtity or, as we like to call him, that steven.
I think this time next year we could have more than ten players in the top 300, which compared to recent times is certainly a step in the right direction!
At the beginning of this year I said that the LTA should be aiming fo 12 male players in the top 500 by the year end. I think that would have constituted a success.
It doesn't take a Mathematical genius to work out that by the end of August (8th month) this would equate to 8 players in the top 500 to be on course for the target.
Players gauranteed to be in the top 500 (based on at least 53 ranmking points) at the end of the year are:
Marray has got to have a good chance Skupski is an outsider if he can get a good run at a Chllenger he should make it Evans is a good chance on current form.
That leaves just 1 more - I think this will need a good winter run from one of the other top 1000 players - Cox? Kasiri? Bamford? A returning Morgan Phillips?