Thanks SC, very interesting article and it's good to see Morgan getting a higher profile for all his efforts.

You'd think the LTA might have taken the fact that he was out for nearly 2 years due to a freak accident and the efforts he's made to make his career in difficult places into account (remember all that stuff a couple of years back about them wanting players to spread their wings ...), wouldn't you, but then again I guess moving to Spain means he was never likely to be considered one of 'theirs'. You'd think AEGON would like to be sponsoring a player with such a good back-story too ...

Of course, we hardly ever learn the full story behind stuff like this so maybe shouldn't be too quick to judge.

Good to see from the mention of the '77%' that the Daily Mail reads BT.net (or OEM) too ... never did I think I'd see the day when my method for calculating ranking changes would gain such universal acceptance  but I guess it's not just me who finds it useful to have a figure that can be used to compare moves by players starting at different levels in the rankings (including unranked), even if the method is still slightly dodgy!

Best of all, it looks like Sheddie is in danger of losing his 'ultimate tennis shedman' status!

"At the root of his scrapes has been lack of money and he has slept ... in a shed in Poland on a bed that was so short it barely reached past his waist."

-- Edited by steven on Thursday 7th of January 2010 10:25:33 AM

on topic again. it was a good article, i hadn't seen it b4 so thanks for bringing it to light SC.

but I'm not surprised he didn't get funding, Boggo (25) & Josh (24) both with higher rankings lost theirs. Now whilst they certainly have had plenty in the past compared to Morgan, especially in Boggo's case, the fact the LTA saw fit to drop them would indicate they are going for a fairly strict age policy.

yes the 3 doubles guys all ranked under 60 got funding, which is fair enough. its not purely age based as you say, if a singles guy was ranked around 110+ I think they get funding whatever their age

As to the article, yes a really good read, thanks Stircrazy.  If there is some too rigid age / overall ranking thing in the LTA funding system that can't adapt to circumstances like Morgan's ( what he has been through, particularly with injury, and his big leap up the rankings ) then I would say that it is a system that isn't truelly fit for purpose.

Great to see all that ambition that is still there, a guy going in the right direction that believes he could be the GB no 2.  A guy to be encouraged and helped !

Here's a thought, John Lloyd earns in the region of £80k as a DC captain. Now why don't we just do away with the position, tell Andy to pick the team (takes 5 mins) and let them go on their merry way to the ties. they can get some kind of stuffed dummy to sit on the bench during matches (maybe more insightful with tactics too). that frees up £80k, so 8 more players can get £10k needed to help with travel for the year.

i don't believe £10k would cover the costs of travel for a player who plays full time on the challenger tour either.

10k isn't far off to be fair Count. For a player to have a pretty standard travelling year on the Futures tour, whilst also playing the British Futures when possible we have worked it out to cost somewhere between 12 and 15k, that is not taking into account any potential prize money they may earn. Someone playing regulary on the Challenger circuit would earn quite a bit more in prize money, plus many Challengers are '+H' so that that save quite a bit. Again, a Challenger level if they wished could earn easily 5-6k by giving up 4 weekends of the year to play German (or French, Belgian etc) league tennis. On top of that is the new improved British Tour where a Challenger player would expect to pick up the £750 cheque if he chose to play. They have got options.

Having said that, I've expressed this view before but I'll say it again - Bogdanovic is still by some distance our second best singles player, and as such he should get some support.