Week 12 Challenger - (€42,500) - Jersey, Great Britain

RedCabbage · Club Coach

RE: Week 12 Challenger - (€42,500) - Jersey, Great Britain

indiana · Tennis legend

I do think Ratty has a very fair point and it's interesting the figs he shows on the French youngsters and I suspect quite a few other countries could be shown.

We just do not and have not had any great number of talented juniors, to the xtent that many are getting very excited about the 93 boys, Ollie Golding and George Morgan, who currently sit at 34 and 44 respectively in the junior rankings.

For whatever reasons, and far from only how they are coached, many many top juniors in all countries will just fail to make the grade as seniors, and ( I really hope not ) among them it would be no great surprise if were Ollie and George.

However, we have such a small pool of really good players at all ages and then at the sort of Ollie / George age real focus comes on them and great expectations.

We have in general so few real potentially top players coming through that I would suggest we notice more when they don't fulfill our hopes. It would be interesting to see how well or otherwise all these top French youngsters, that Ratty mentioned, devloped.

Even if they do reasonably well, they could to some extent be buried among, as Red Cabbage points out, the top juniors from many other years.

I don't deny that we produce some talented youngsters and as Shhh points out many of these do not develop as folk maybe hoped and certainly not into top 100 pros. But we just do not produce anything like enough players to have great expectations that among a bigger number will emerge a few gems. Yes, there may be some issues about how players are brought through from junior to senior but the reasons British tennis does not end up with any core of top 100 players run so much deeper than that. That is largely connected to the overall player base and just getting kids playing, discussed often on this forum and quite currently on another thread.

indiana · Tennis legend

Back to the WCs themselves, and more particularly James Ward, I still would say that looked at overall James has had a good pretty good start to a year that we are still only in the third month of.

His early tournaments were pretty good and he has only really disappointed I'd say in the French Future in February and then this week's GB future to an inform Alex Ward ( who I agree I would still expect him to have beaten ).

I just do not think a little not so good period more than negates his otherwise decent results and with his position as GB no 3 ( less so to me playing Davis Cup, but it is a point ) then I really am surprised that Shhh has such issues with his WC. Given he says James is a player he likes, he must be more than aware of what a decent comeback James has generally made.

Ratty · County player

I completely agree. My hypothesis is that the British perform about as well as one might expect, given the size of the player base.

The problem is the ludicrous degree of expectation, resulting from the fact that we invented the game and host the most famous tournament.

It would be interesting to have a comparison of the number of players in GB compared with France and Spain. We will never get reliable figures, of course. One of the LTA's objectives is to increase the number of players, so you can expect them to count every 4 year old picking up a plastic racket to hit a foam ball as a "competitive player".

What would be a good indicator would be the number of rackets sold by Wilson or Head in the various countries. I doubt that this information is freely available.

The Magician Santoro · Top national player

Apparenty some players are strugging to get to Jersey on time due to the BA strike

http://www.thisisjersey.com/2010/03/...s-ormes-event/
Tournament organiser Hugh Raymond said that players trying to travel across Europe to reach Jersey for the tournament, due to start on Sunday at Les Ormes, are struggling to make it after BA announced strikes on 20-22 and 27-30 March. (...)
As a result people are asking if they can arrive on Monday instead and have been requesting that we change their hotel bookings and car hire. But we have a deadline for people to sign in to the tournament and that is 9 pm Saturday for the men and 6 pm Sunday for the ladies

indiana · Tennis legend

Yes, if by sticking to deadlines, it's going to get rid of some really good continental players trying to travel across Europe, go for it smile

Then again, some flexibility might be in order here, presuming they are allowed to change the deadlines.

-- Edited by indiana on Saturday 20th of March 2010 12:07:13 PM

johnnylad · Tennis legend

Lets just hope all the Brits went by flybe from Southampton.

We could end up with all Brits in the main draw and Jersey club players in qualies.

Isn't that a pip?!

The Knight · Challenger qualifying

Ratty wrote:
Sorry to break your balls on a side issue, squire, but this is a another one of those myths about British tennis that everyone trots out from time-to-time.

What evidence do you have to support this assertion?

Here's some evidence which shows that our juniors are about as good as our seniors. Check out the ITF Junior Year End top 10 lists (boys) from 1997-2009, which is on the ITF website under "History".

There is one British boy (guess who). There are 16 French boys.

Fantastic point. People always say we produce loads of talented juniors who dont become great seniors but that is referring to guys like Delgado and Martin Lee who were juniors like 15 years ago! It's one point that the LTA get slaughtered on, perhaps unfairly so.

Boggo and Evans were fringe top 10 players but there are lots of those about and i reckon theyve achieved pretty much what you might expect for their junior career, especially when you consider a junior no 1 in Dimitrov hasnt lit up the seniors

Certainly we have a very good group at the moment with Golding, Morgan, Broady, Bambridge and Edmund and you'd really hope at least one of them converts into a great senior

TimProper · Junior player

apparently colin fleming continues to have troubles with an injured foot. he's awaiting the results of an mri today. in the meantime, it seems rohan bopanna got the last-minute call to come and play jersey with ken. if he can get there, that is.

edited to add: i guess bopanna will be sticking with skuppers through italy, too. poor flembo.

(all the above info comes by way of twitter, btw)

-- Edited by TimProper on Saturday 20th of March 2010 02:50:38 PM

spud · Challenger qualifying

Quali draw out.

http://www.lta.org.uk/Global/Downloads/Results/2010/AEGON%20Pro-Series/Jersey%20MAR/Mens%20singles%20qualifying%20draw.pdf

Eaton in Groths section. So will be hard to qualify.

Inglot not turned up, so maybe the injury was quite bad?

Any brit to qualify is a good effort.

Josh · Challenger level

3rd quarter looks the best bet with Cox, Milton and Pauffley and Sirianni WR 309 and Kaasen WR 374 as the two seeds.

indiana · Tennis legend

I see Groth, the no 1 qualifying seed is shown as ranked 272.

I don't know how folk stood in order on the entry list, but just wondered if possibly Ward and Evans ( or at least one of them ) didn't actually need WCs in the end and if not have they maybe been reasigned to other GB players ? smile

-- Edited by indiana on Saturday 20th of March 2010 10:47:48 PM

steven · Tennis legend

QR1: Sean Thornley WR 798 v James McGee (IRL) WR 499
QR1: (q7) Chris Eaton WR 408 v Antoine Tassart (FRA) WR 1188

Winners to play each other. The top seed in this section is (q1) Groth WR 272. Chris was the player who ended Nielsen's 22-match Brit-bashing streak, can he do the same to Groth's 16- match BBS?

QR1: (wc) Tom Farquharson UNR v (q2) Frederik Nielsen (DEN) WR 275
QR1: Matt Illingworth WR 768 v Romain Jouan (FRA) WR 486

Winners to play each other. I can't see either of the Brits getting past Nielsen, but evne if one of them does, (q5) Capkovic WR 360 who is on a 10-match BBS.

QR1: Dan Cox WR 454 v (q3) Joseph Sirianni (AUS) WR 309
QR1: Josh Milton WR 563 v Philippe Frayssinoux (FRA) WR 865
QR1: Neil Pauffley WR 698 v (wc) Joachim Kretz (GER) UNR

The winner of the last match will face (q6) Raven Klaasen (RSA) WR 374 or Fed's DC doubles partner Yves Allegro. The least bad of some very tough sections.

QR1: Oliver Golding WR 1704 v Barry King IRL WR 601
QR1: (wc) Scott Clayton UNR v (wc) David McKenna (IRL) UNR

The winner of the first match is likely to face (q4) Grégoire Burquier (FRA) WR 339 and the winner of the second is likely to play (q8) Roman Valent (SUI) WR 423 in QR2.

I wonder if the fact that the top seed in qualifying is WR 272 means that Wardy and Evo scraped in as DAs in the end, creating two more WC places.

Josh · Challenger level

Who's Scott Clayton and why have we given WCs to a Irishman and a German??

steven · Tennis legend

indiana wrote:

I see Groth, the no 1 qualifying seed is shown as ranked 272.

I don't know how folk stood in order on the entry list, but just wondered if possibly Ward and Evans ( or at least one of them ) didn't actually need WCs in the end and if not have they maybe been reasigned to other GB players ?

Snap!

The obvious possibilities are Josh (surely he'd have playing in qualifying otherwise) and Jamie B, if he's fit now. Morgan Phillips is another notable absentee and he doesn't seem to be playing anywhere else next week.