The Net Post: Alex Bogdanovic deserves Davis Cup chance

steven · Tennis legend

RE: The Times

indiana · Tennis legend

Happy Birthday to OEM.

At least we have one journalist that knows what he is talking about and genuinely seems to care about the future of British tennis.

OldEchoMan · Social player

Hello all. I've been out of contact for a while because couldn't find the site while in the US for a month and have taken a short break to have much needed dental work done since I returned (four wisdom teeth out! Don't do that at my age!! cry

).

There is absolutely nothing I can do about the pay-wall, I'm afraid. As one or two of you have written, I suspect it will be the thin end of the wedge and once it becomes established at The Times - as I am sure it will - the rest will have to follow suit. I don't think £2 a week is too much to ask to be kept informed.......

I am back on the case from this week onwards (an interesting piece going in on Monday, I am led the believe!), then on to Rome, Madrid and Paris before the grass court season starts. I appreciate your birthday wishes. I'm afraid I'm nearer the end of my career than the beginning......

Regards OEM

Madeline · Admin:Moderator + Tennis Legend

Happy Birthday - a bit belated, but this is the first time I have managed to get on the computer today and I missed this a week ago!

-- Edited by Madeline on Saturday 17th of April 2010 02:10:03 PM

indiana · Tennis legend

Hmm, re the £2 a week, if it becomes firmly established throughout newspapers then folk may have more of a decision to make, and some will pay noone.

I'm afraid until that stage, I can't see very many folk at all feeling the Times offers anything like enough unique information for them to be considering putting their hand in thir pocket., when they can be kept informed elsewhere.

If money no object, maybe, but...

Sorry, OEM smile

WelshPhil · Social player

I think news sites are in for a shock. Very few will register and pay. What does any news site actually provide. A summary of the most popular news items with a bit of biased (politucal) commentary.

By most popular I mean news that would appear in a thirty minute news bulletin. For sport that means Football.

I get Tennis news here, Swimming news from Swimnews.com, Athletics news from Trackandfilednews.com. The latter 2 sports hardly get any coverage on mainstream news sites, tennis is not much better.

All special interests have their own websites and give far better news for thier specialties than any newspaper site can or should deliver.

I dip into these mainstream sites but will not pay to visit them and will not miss using them. The BBC will be free for the foreseeable future and will give me the summaries I need (and are actually very good for giving links to the specialist sites that offer more info should I need it)

Aside : Perhaps the football fans will pay up again as they seem to be willing to pay for any sort of coverage of their sport. Truly baffles me why people pay so much to watch and talk about a football game, any football game.

greatunclebulgaria · Lower Club Player

really good article today http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/tennis/article7114440.ece

steven · Tennis legend

Thanks, lots of thought-provoking stuff in there.

indiana · Tennis legend

Yes, really lots of good stuff there.

Particularly the main item on clay. It's little wonder Bally struggles on the surface when she played so little on it in her development. I suspect it would never have exactly been her best surface but real training, practice and matches would have surely helped. Maybe things are improving these days, I hope so !

I wish we had many more players really capable on the surface and great to see Naomi's success in Italy last week.

Unlike some, clay is a surface I often really enjoy watching matches on as players tactically battle for openings in matches. I generally prefer watching matches on clay to matches on grass ( there, I've said it smile

)

Other good stuff includes : LTA's "dramatic shifting of the goalposts " re keeping older players in the game ( much commented on in this forum ) ; the ( LTA ? ) exhibition with the giant poster of Wayne Odesnik. Duh ! ; and, Corretja's strange silence on matters Muzza related.

It's a good read.

-- Edited by indiana on Monday 3rd of May 2010 11:45:53 AM

The Knight · Challenger qualifying

generally claycourt matches are better than grass but the best grasscourt matches are better than the best claycourt matches i think

CourtCrazy · Social player

The issue with clay courts is a double edged sword. I can understand the points that have already been made but on the flip side, not many people realise that if you have clay courts, they have to be 'rested' with no play at all on them for 3 months of the year, there is also the issue of the weather. If it rains for 30 minutes then a clay court is out of action for a few hours. Taking this into account you can't really have small clubs putting clay courts down as their only courts. The big HPCs can have them as a luxury, but you can't have a situation whereby our players can't train for a day or two because the courts cannot be used. With our climate and limited space, hard courts and indoor courts have to be our priority for the time being, not getting more clay courts down. In my opinion anyway.

The Knight · Challenger qualifying

my club had some lovely claycourts installed in 1999 (Castle even turned up to announce the opening) but the English weather put paid to them within 3 years. Now last year we finally got round to replacing them properly with artificial claycourts, which maintenance-wise are the best for British climate but maybe too expensive for many smaller clubs?

steven · Tennis legend

I never thought I'd see this headline in the Times:

The Net Post: Alex Bogdanovic deserves Davis Cup chance

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/tennis/article7121218.ece

Not sure whether the headline or the fact that Boggo seems to have opened up a bit in an interview is the more surprising thing.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

well nice to see something in the times about Alex, i've been hoping he would get something done with Neil since the start of the year.

was this an little error though:

And yet Bogdanovic appeared in only one match of the eight in which John Lloyd was Davis Cup captain

As Alex played vs both Austria and Argentina.

I think this tie will depend a lot on the grass season, if he can pick up some decent points he may be prepared to effectively sacrafice 2 events for it, but if not he may have to put his singles 1st.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

daily mail bit on WC's

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/tennis/article-1278932/Bogged-wildcards-Wimbledon-Laura-Robson-Heather-Watson-set-call.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Mike Dickinson expects alex to get a WC as he is the only brit in the top10 to have improved his ranking since this time last year.