Davis Cup - Euro Africa Zone Group II R1 - GBR v Turkey, 9-11 July 2010

airsmashers · County player

RE: Davis Cup - Euro Africa Zone Group II R1 - GBR v Turkey, 9-11 July 2010

LadyTigress · County player

Maybe. Btw everyone, I've just edited my previous post as more results have come in from the other ties. Hungary have defeated Macedonia. Estonia and Bosnia Herzegovina still hasn't been decided.

EDIT: And now Bosnia Herzegovina have seen off Estonia, so I have further edited the previous post to that effect. The Netherlands have beat Belarus, meaning Belarus and the Slovak Republic will be fighting to avoid relegation from Group I to join us in Group II next year (as will Poland and Latvia).

-- Edited by LadyTigress on Sunday 11th of July 2010 04:35:08 PM

steven · Tennis legend

I'll read through this thread a bit later, but I'm guessing nobody checked when was the last time a non-Tim/Greg/Andy Brit won a live rubber AND we won the tie as well.

As far as I can tell, Wardy's win against Ilhan this weekend was the first time a Brit other than Tim, Greg or Andy has won a live singles rubber AND we have won the tie since Luke Milligan beat Frank Ofori in a 5-0 win v Ghana in Accra in July 1996.

... and the first time a Brit other than Tim, Greg or Andy has won a live singles rubber against a higher-ranked player AND we have won the tie since Mark Petchey (then WR 324) beat Thomas Muster (then WR 38) in a 3-1 win v Austria in Manchester in September 1991, nearly 19 years ago!

Given how the GB women have been achieving a lot of things last done in the early 1990s recently, it's about time the men started catching up biggrin

P.S. When Andrew Richardson beat Byron Black (who was higher-ranked than him), we lost the tie 4-1, so that's why that doesn't count for either of the above, but if I've missed an obvious one and got one of these wrong, please shout!

-- Edited by steven on Sunday 11th of July 2010 04:27:44 PM

indiana · Tennis legend

No doubt true, BUT...

Don't want to rain on the parade of facts but it's remarkable what you can do once you start meeting lower and lower class opposition such as in a Euro Africa Zone Group II relegation play-off

Ward's win against Ilhan was good, but we've got a long way to go.

I look forward to the day such feats are being achieved at a higher level.

By the way as a bit of a stats nut, I'm not unappreciative of the info, and I'm sure we all in fact do know there is a long way to to go ( I think I'm really rambling unnecessarily thinks I half-way through ), so thanks for the info, Steven smile

-- Edited by indiana on Sunday 11th of July 2010 04:42:20 PM

steven · Tennis legend

indiana wrote:
No doubt true, BUT...

Don't want to rain on the parade of facts but it's remarkable what you can do once you start meeting lower and lower class opposition such as in a Euro Africa Zone Group II relegation play-off Ward's win against Ilhan was good, but we've got a long way to go.

I look forward to the day such feats are being achieved at a higher level.

Me too, but baby steps - of course, after Lithuania being the country we couldn't lose to even without Andy, Turkey were the country we really, really couldn't lose to even without Andy and to me the thing which would determine whether we were making progress or not was whether either of our boys would beat Ilhan. The fact that one of them did is worth celebrating, I think. smile

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

Once it was announced that Ilhan wasn't playing today, anything other than 5-0 was never realistically going to happen.

Altuna put up a decent fight against Baker for the first set, but after that looked like the proverbial fish out of water on a grass court (he moves and plays exactly like you would expect a clay courter to do) and Baker eased to victory.

Ward was just too good for Zorlu as well and lost focus after going 5-0 in the first set, and managed to regain it midway through set two before he went on to win.

Very easy wins in the end and hopefully this should be the bottoming out of where we go in the Davis Cup and as long as we don't get stuck with a nightmare draw (something like Portugal away, providing we aren't both seeded and they don't get promoted), we should have enough to have a chance of going back up, especially as Andy has to play one tie next year to ensure he can play in the Olympics, and presumably that would coincide with a match that either sees us have a chance at promotion, or to get us into a promotion tie.

steven · Tennis legend

One thing that was very good to see both at the DC tie and in interviews afterwards was how well Leon and the players (including the sub!) seemed to be supporting each other.

I realise that's easier to do when you're winning and I realise some of the wins probably should have been a bit more emphatic given the opposition (e.g. Flemski haven't been as ruthless as I'd have liked against either LTU to TUR, though that doesn't mean they wouldn't be able to up their game if motivated to do so by facing much better opposition and they did more than enough to ensure that their rubbers were never in any kind of doubt in either tie) but you just felt that the team wasn't weighed down by all the baggage that always seemed to be around when JL was the captain and the disruption that has occurred when certain other players have played.

I wonder if it's telling that the squad was made up of three Scots including the captain (one of whom escaped from the tennis cauldron from a couple of years and has no doubt emerged with much more maturity and perspective) and three Englishmen, two of whom spent most of their formative years in Spain with the third 'escaping' to college in America.

None of this is meant to imply that I don't want Boggo and Bloomers to be picked in future - they're not the 'disruptive influences' I was talking about. Boggo certainly comes with plenty of baggage, but that's largely the fault of the scapegoating policy of the past and Bloomers was never given his chance when he should have been because, if I remember right, he was 'too quiet' to be a team player. (possibly the worst excuse for not picking a player for DC singles ever made) If either of them was drafted into a squad with a more positive, forward-looking attitude, they might just thrive in it.

angry1 · Lower Club Player

Yes, see http://www.freewebs.com/britishtennis/stats/ch-m.htm?n=1

Looking at Fleming and Skupski on another post from Steven, is it the case that if a DC singles injury occurs Fleming would step in,or would it IYO depend on the opponent?

Would you think Smith would like them to get occasional singles practice in case they're needed.Playing 2 out and out doubles players would be a risk against a more evenly matched team, is it one we should take?

Would either 1 of the singles players or a 3rd singles choice form a good enough doubles team with 1 doubles specialist to make a more flexible team a better choice?I would prefer the 3rd singles player option but don't know the players well enough to know if it's feasible.

steven · Tennis legend

angry1 wrote:

Yes, see http://www.freewebs.com/britishtennis/stats/ch-m.htm?n=1
Looking at Fleming and Skupski on another post from Steven, is it the case that if a DC singles injury occurs Fleming would step in,or would it IYO depend on the opponent?
Would you think Smith would like them to get occasional singles practice in case they're needed.Playing 2 out and out doubles players would be a risk against a more evenly matched team, is it one we should take?
Would either 1 of the singles players or a 3rd singles choice form a good enough doubles team with 1 doubles specialist to make a more flexible team a better choice?I would prefer the 3rd singles player option but don't know the players well enough to know if it's feasible.

I'm sure the plan this time was that Colin would step in if there was a singles injury, but that is going to be a tricky call in the future.

The options are:

1) pick a specialist doubles team that includes a decent singles player (Colin fits the bill in the context of this year's ties, indeed I remember quite a few of us hoping he'd be picked for the 5th rubber v LTU even if Evo wasn't injured)

2) pick three singles players and one doubles specialist and make sure that the 3rd choice is a decent doubles player too (Ilkley last week suggests that someone like Josh Goodall might be a good example, though not necessarily the first choice for that role)

The best choice is likely to depend on the make up of the other team. Against Turkey, the only way we had much chance of losing was if Ilhan played like a top 100 player, won both his singles rubbers and put pressure on us in the doubles, whereas if Wardy hadn't been able to play the 5th rubber, Colin could have been expected to beat anyone other than Ilhan fairly easily, making the team selected absolutely right.

Against Austria in 2008, on the other hand, Muzza was always likely to get 2 points, they had a doubles pair ranked much higher than any of our doubles specialists and it always looked like Peya in the 5th rubber was going to be the crunch match. In that case, to pick two doubles specialists who had given up on singles even more than Colin has now, didn't even have a good a singles record as Colin in the first place, didn't even play as a regular team together and were always more likely to lose the doubles than to win it seemed crazy, especially when only a fully fit player was going to have a chance against Peya in a 5th rubber.

I still think Boggo would have won had he been fit, and when he wasn't, I think possible third singles players such as one of our big servers or even Jamie Baker (who had beaten Peya at Queen's) would have had a better chance against Peya than our dubs team had of upsetting Melzer & Knowle.

Against higher level teams, I'd be inclined to go for a third singles player (who is decent at doubles too) unless Flemski would be favourites to win the doubles rubber and/or we simply didn't have a 3rd option for singles who was likely to have any chance against the opposing second string.

Btw quite a few of the AM.commers were convinced the Wardinator (i.e. Alex - I realise Alexandra at ACE confused that issue by referring to James as the Wardinator a couple of times on here blog - too many Wards! wink

) would play one of the doubles rubbers on Sunday to get some experience, didn't believe me when I said that wasn't allowed and in a couple of cases were convinced someone outside the starting four had played a dead rubber before. I'm sure it isn't allowed, even in dead rubbers.

-- Edited by steven on Monday 12th of July 2010 02:23:58 PM

angry1 · Lower Club Player

steven wrote:

angry1 wrote:

Yes, see http://www.freewebs.com/britishtennis/stats/ch-m.htm?n=1
Looking at Fleming and Skupski on another post from Steven, is it the case that if a DC singles injury occurs Fleming would step in,or would it IYO depend on the opponent?
Would you think Smith would like them to get occasional singles practice in case they're needed.Playing 2 out and out doubles players would be a risk against a more evenly matched team, is it one we should take?
Would either 1 of the singles players or a 3rd singles choice form a good enough doubles team with 1 doubles specialist to make a more flexible team a better choice?I would prefer the 3rd singles player option but don't know the players well enough to know if it's feasible.

I'm sure the plan this time was that Colin would step in if there was a singles injury, but that is going to be a tricky call in the future.

The options are:

1) pick a specialist doubles team that includes a decent singles player (Colin fits the bill in the context of this year's ties, indeed I remember quite a few of us hoping he'd be picked for the 5th rubber v LTU even if Evo wasn't injured)

2) pick three singles players and one doubles specialist and make sure that the 3rd choice is a decent doubles player too (Ilkley last week suggests that someone like Josh Goodall might be a good example, though not necessarily the first choice for that role)

The best choice is likely to depend on the make up of the other team. Against Turkey, the only way we had much chance of losing was if Ilhan played like a top 100 player, won both his singles rubbers and put pressure on us in the doubles, whereas if Wardy hadn't been able to play the 5th rubber, Colin could have been expected to beat anyone other than Ilhan fairly easily, making the team selected absolutely right.

Against Austria in 2008, on the other hand, Muzza was always likely to get 2 points, they had a doubles pair ranked much higher than any of our doubles specialists and it always looked like Peya in the 5th rubber was going to be the crunch match. In that case, to pick two doubles specialists who had given up on singles even more than Colin has now, didn't even have a good a singles record as Colin in the first place, didn't even play as a regular team together and were always more likely to lose the doubles than to win it seemed crazy, especially when only a fully fit player was going to have a chance against Peya in a 5th rubber.

I still think Boggo would have won had he been fit, and when he wasn't, I think possible third singles players such as one of our big servers or even Jamie Baker (who had beaten Peya at Queen's) would have had a better chance against Peya than our dubs team had of upsetting Melzer & Knowle.

Against higher level teams, I'd be inclined to go for a third singles player (who is decent at doubles too) unless Flemski would be favourites to win the doubles rubber and/or we simply didn't have a 3rd option for singles who was likely to have any chance against the opposing second string.

Btw quite a few of the AM.commers were convinced the Wardinator (i.e. Alex - I realise Alexandra at ACE confused that issue by referring to James as the Wardinator a couple of times on here blog - too many Wards! ) would play one of the doubles rubbers on Sunday to get some experience, didn't believe me when I said that wasn't allowed and in a couple of cases were convinced someone outside the starting four had played a dead rubber before. I'm sure it isn't allowed, even in dead rubbers.

-- Edited by steven on Monday 12th of July 2010 02:23:58 PM

I agree the shape of the team was right this time,but maybe not entirely by design?

It's my impression that for PR purposes picking a team that,barring Andy's return, will be stuck with is the way to go,I hope they don't do that.If they do then I hope Colin,Ken or both play some more singles or if they're at events they can't get in try to get some singles practice against good players.Pandering to PR concerns caused IMO poor WC decisions and if the team performs well,won't be an issue anyway.

I would like to see Leon Smith encourage some of the better singles players to take the opportunity when scheduling and rankings allow to mix and match doubles teams.It would give him a chance to asses the best team for each tie.Although obviously I hope he wouldn't put excessive weight on a limited sample.

steven · Tennis legend

Btw it looks like we needn't worry about being worse than Ireland, despite going out a round earlier than them this year.

We beat Turkey 5-0 whereas Ireland beat them 4-1 (though Ilhan did play on the last day in that case) and while we both lost to Lithuania 3-2, the Irish were 3-0 down after day 2 and the Lithuanians played their 3rd and 4th strings in the dead rubbers.

Weirdest pair of results this year? Conor Niland, who upset Ilhan in March for the loss of just 6 games and was then upset himself by Grigelis last Friday and only won 6 games!