This October, tennis will be part of the Commonwealth Games in Delhi for the first time. There are competitions in singles, doubles & mixed doubles with each country able to enter:
3 mens singles players (32 Draw) 3 womens singles players (32 Draw) 2 mens doubles teams (16 Team Draw) 2 womens doubles teams (16 Team Draw) 2 mixed doubles teams (16 Team Draw)
Each country can send a maximum of 4 men and 4 women. The top 26 players in each event get direct acceptance on ranking on 2nd August. The remaining 6 are allocated by the ITF based on ranking+ensuring representation from each continent/country. Withdrawals are replaced by highest ranked alternate from the same country if any exist, then the highest ranked outright.
Matches will be played on newly built outdoor hard courts and the tournament runs from 4th-10th of October. Finishing 4 days before the end of the games means it avoids a conflict with the ATP 1000 Shanghai masters, so Andy may play, but it does clash with the WTA Premier China Open, so Bally/Anne may not.
England: Sarah Borwell, Anna Smith, Katie O'Brien, Ken Skupski, Ross Hutchins, James Ward, Richard Bloomfield
Guernsey: Heather Watson, Patrick Ogier, Dominic McLuskey.
Isle of Man: No players
Jersey: No players
Northern Ireland: No Players
Scotland: Jamie Murray, Colin Fleming, Elean Baltacha, Jos Rae, Mhairi Brown
Wales: Josh Milton
Gibraltar: Amanda Carreras
-- Edited by RBBOT on Tuesday 31st of August 2010 06:51:51 PM
-- Edited by wolf on Friday 1st of October 2010 09:15:52 AM
Sadly three home nations have named their complete teams and they include no tennis players. I've also added some unofficial info on the England team from gb tennis girls forum. Very disappointed not to see Laura on the list, if it is accurate, given her aer restrictions, and the fact I'd give her a better chance of winning a singles medal than Anna or Katie.
Of course we don't know the criteria team England use for selection; they've published them for every other sport except tennis on their website.
-- Edited by RBBOT on Sunday 1st of August 2010 05:10:22 AM
If Murray wants to play an event pre Shanghai he would probably consider either of the ATP 500 events in Tokyo or Beijing to be a more attractive option (strictly speaking he is supposed to play 2 more 500 events this year and would need to play one of these to do so)
As for the other guys (and girls) they probably would rather play events were they can get ranking points.
So I thought I would see what the competition would be like, viewing only the world top 300. Only 15 out of 300 - I cant help feeling there should be many more - who have I missed?
Commonwealth players from the top 300 Rankings will be based on Aug 2nd
4 - Andy Murray - Scotland 25 - Marco Baghdatis - Cyprus 30 - Lleyton Hewitt - Australia 98 - Peter Luczac - Australia 99 - Dustin Brown - Jamaica 200 - Peter Polansky - Canada 209 - Milos Raonic - Canada 213 - Greg Jones - Australia 223 - Bernard Tomic - Australia 237 - Nick Lindahl - Australia 249 - Jamie Baker - Scotland 260 - John Millman - Australia 263 - Isak van der Merwe - Rep South Africa 269 - Brydan Klein - Australia 283 - James Ward - England 287 - Richard Bloomfield - England
-- Edited by mjd on Wednesday 4th of August 2010 03:53:03 PM
-- Edited by The Knight on Wednesday 4th of August 2010 03:49:11 PM
Quite right I have added Tomic but not Boggo, as far as I know he might be British now but is not English, Scot, Welsh or N.I.
Hasn't he lived exclusively in England while in Britain?I'd have thought he was more English than Bally is Scottish if I'm right.
A quick glance at Wikipedia for confirmation was fruitless,but did bring up a grossly unfair quote from The Times.Unusual for Neil Harman to write something like that I thought,then looked at the link Barry Flatman wrote it,so that makes sense now.
The standard for English Rugby League according to Sky is residency for 4 years he must be over that surely?Unless it's very different for tennis.
If Boggo has a British passport, I am sure he can represent one of the home countries, maybe actually all of them. I'm pretty sure he won't be there though.
Qualification varies greatly re different sports, but it's more of an issue where England, Scotland etc compete regularly as separate sporting countries. In this case, once accepted within the UK, I doubt there are any particularly strict criteria for tennis re which component part you can represent. Think it probably much like squash where Peter Nicol, the former World No 1 was apparently able to just decide he was fed up with Scotland and was now representing England !
Re the Commonwealth Games tennis in general, I am afraid I personally find it difficult to get that much interested in it, compared to the ongoing global tennis events at different levels.
I don't expect to see a lot of these listed higher ranked players competing, similarly with the women, certainly not Muzza.
-- Edited by indiana on Wednesday 4th of August 2010 04:40:51 PM
As far as I was aware in order to play sport for a particular country one had to prove a family connection by birth, not just live there. However, the way this country is falling apart I wouldn't be surprised to see Mahmoud Amadhinijad declare that he was English and Liberty would support his claim then a high court judge would declare that he could not be extradited in case he was assinated in Iran.
-- Edited by mjd on Wednesday 4th of August 2010 04:48:18 PM
As far as I was aware in order to play sport for a particular country one had to prove a family connection by birth, not just live there. However, the way this country is falling apart I wouldn't be surprised to see Mahmoud Amadhinijad declare that he was English.
In Rugby Union for one, you can qualify through a certain number of years residency with no blood link, and also by marriage.
Even the blood link rules have been abused / misunderstood in the past with examples of "grannygate"