Steph has moved rapidly this year from outside 500 to the cusp of the top 100, thanks to a late season spurt, which saw her capture a Grade 2 title in China, before beating a top 50 player in the Eddie Herr Trophy.
Joanna Henderson
Joanna won a silver medal at the World Junior Finals, along with Laura Robson and Jessica Ren. A Grand Prix Masters win has been followed by a British U-14 National Championships title in singles and a 16 & under title in doubles.
Samantha Vickers
Sam started the year by winning the 18&under Grand Prix Masters, and has climbed the ITF junior rankings rapidly from outside 1000 into the top 250 thanks largely to back-to-back singles titles in Scotland.
Alexandra Walker
16 year-old Alex has climbed the rankings rapidly this year, starting outside 1000 but finishing near to 200, winning 2 singles and 2 doubles titles en route, also upsetting a top 100 player in Wimbledon qualifying, and reaching the final of the 16&under Grand Prix Masters.
Heather Watson
Heather started the year outside 300 but has had a phenomenal season end, winning the singles gold medal for Guernsey at the Commonwealth Youth Games in Pune and following this up by winning her first Grade 1 event in Mexico. Reaching the final of the prestigious Eddie Herr Trophy in the following week has seen Heather enter the top 30. She was also in the GB 16 & under girls team which finished as runners-up at the Junior Fed Cup
Commendations for Naomi Broady (Wimbledon Quarter-finalist), Hannah James (reaching top 100) and Jennifer Ren (highest ranked 1993 girl)
Some Forum members may be puzzled by the omission of Laura Robson from this category. In my experience it is common practice to give Top and Most Improved awards to different people, with the Most Improved award usually being someone below the very top. I therefore opted not to inominate Laura in this category, despite her obvious level of improvement. I appreciate that not everyone will agree with this approach, but hope that you will understand it. You can vote for Laura in the Most Improved Female category (as well as Top Girl) though, if you want to.
Some Forum members may be puzzled by the omission of Laura Robson from this category. In my experience it is common practice to give Top and Most Improved awards to different people, with the Most Improved award usually being someone below the very top. I therefore opted not to inominate Laura in this category, despite her obvious level of improvement. I appreciate that not everyone will agree with this approach, but hope that you will understand it. You can vote for Laura in the Most Improved Female category (as well as Top Girl) though, if you want to.
Apologies for not stating that in the post above.
For the top / most improved male I have left Andy Murray in because of the year he has had but can we go with as David C suggest. I think that is very fair in these sections.
Don't quite understand the logic of keeping Andy and Anne in the most improved categories but not allowing Laura to enter the girls' because she'd be guaranteed to win. Surely it belittles the "most improved" tag even more if the biggest achievers aren't able to win.
Anyway, it's all a bit of fun! Thanks for organising.
I have to assume that Ameican Boy and Fitzy for Top nnnn are the same person - the odds of the top two most sarcastic tennis followers signing up to the same messages board are pretty long. :)
It's definetly not the same person!! I like Steph and everything and surely she deserves few votes?
I am very happy for you that you like her.
However, this was a poll for who folk thought was most improved, one vote per person and most folk have chosen Heather watson.
It is everyone' individual free vote, I don't see how anyone particularly "deserves" to get a few votes. Folk just individually vote for who they think most improved.
