Queens WC - Disgrace?

Count Zero · Tennis legend

Queens WC - Disgrace?

Count Zero · Tennis legend

so i guess Ancic is out

Only only 2/5 to Brits. As expected Boggo misses out, but so does Alex Ward after a great run in Nottingham, which with 1 more win (and a winnable match given who he has just beaten) would miss out on qualies too.

Evo obviously in in disgrace right now but what has Dimitrov done to deserve one over Evo?

What will we get in return from USTA & TA for the gifts?

Count Zero · Tennis legend

from the queens site:

British Davis Cup players and International young guns awarded AEGON Championships wild cards

The AEGON Championships has awarded its wild cards to two of Great Britains Davis Cup players and three of the most promising teenagers in the sport.

British duo Jamie Baker and James Ward are joined by 17-year-old Australian Bernard Tomic, 18-year-old American Ryan Harrison and the former Wimbledon boys champion, 19-year-old Grigor Dimitrov in the main draw of the event, which starts at The Queens Club in London on Monday.

Baker has made a stirring comeback from a life-threatening illness over the past year. The Scot had fallen as low as No.982 in July of last year because of the illness-enforced lay-off, but has shot up more than 700 places to No.257. Meanwhile Ward qualified for the ATP event in Chennai at the start of the year, and won a set against former World No.1 Marat Safin at The Queens Club in 2008. .

Tomic has also made great strides over the past 18 months, jumping more than 500 places in the rankings to No.260, winning eight matches to lift a challenger title as a qualifier in February, and extending eventual semi-finalist Marin Cilic to five sets in the Australian Open.

Dimitrov, currently ranked No.338, won the Wimbledon boys title in 2008 and reached the second round at the AEGON Championships last year, losing out narrowly to former World No.6 Gilles Simon of France.

Harrison, No.268, lists grass as his favourite surface, and is one of the great hopes of American tennis. He successfully qualified for the Delray Beach tournament earlier this year and is the highest ranked teenager in the United States.

We always try to use our wild cards to give an opportunity to British players, young international prospects, or established players who are returning from illness or injury, said Tournament Director, Chris Kermode.

We had initially given a wild card to Mario Ancic, who has been out of the game for a long time through illness, but unfortunately he has sustained a back injury and had to pull out. Jamie Baker and James Ward have both performed well since returning from illness themselves, and the teenage trio of Bernard Tomic, Ryan Harrison and Grigor Dimitrov have all got enormous potential. We look forward to seeing how they perform against a world-class field here at the AEGON Championships.

steven · Tennis legend

I had to check the Queen's site before I could believe you weren't just making a sick joke.

Dimitrov was getting all kinds of dodgy WCs last year as the supposed next big thing in tennis and seems to have proved fairly conclusively since then (if he's ranked 338, which is actually lower than Evo was ranked at the same age isn't it?) that it was all just hype, so what do Queen's do? - give him another one. Genius!!!!

And it appears that one Challenger WC for Jamie B in Carson is worth one Nottingham Challenger WC and one Queen's WC for Harrison in return. What a fair swap that is

Have the LTA done a swap with the USTA and TA that we don't know about? And if they have, why aren't they announcing it at the same time?

Count Zero wrote:

from the queens site:

British Davis Cup players and International young guns awarded AEGON Championships wild cards

The AEGON Championships has awarded its wild cards to two of Great Britains Davis Cup players and three of the most promising teenagers in the sport.

British duo Jamie Baker and James Ward are joined by 17-year-old Australian Bernard Tomic, 18-year-old American Ryan Harrison and the former Wimbledon boys champion, 19-year-old Grigor Dimitrov in the main draw of the event, which starts at The Queens Club in London on Monday.

Baker has made a stirring comeback from a life-threatening illness over the past year. The Scot had fallen as low as No.982 in July of last year because of the illness-enforced lay-off, but has shot up more than 700 places to No.257. Meanwhile Ward qualified for the ATP event in Chennai at the start of the year, and won a set against former World No.1 Marat Safin at The Queens Club in 2008. .

Tomic has also made great strides over the past 18 months, jumping more than 500 places in the rankings to No.260, winning eight matches to lift a challenger title as a qualifier in February, and extending eventual semi-finalist Marin Cilic to five sets in the Australian Open.

Dimitrov, currently ranked No.338, won the Wimbledon boys title in 2008 and reached the second round at the AEGON Championships last year, losing out narrowly to former World No.6 Gilles Simon of France.

Harrison, No.268, lists grass as his favourite surface, and is one of the great hopes of American tennis. He successfully qualified for the Delray Beach tournament earlier this year and is the highest ranked teenager in the United States.

We always try to use our wild cards to give an opportunity to British players, young international prospects, or established players who are returning from illness or injury, said Tournament Director, Chris Kermode.

We had initially given a wild card to Mario Ancic, who has been out of the game for a long time through illness, but unfortunately he has sustained a back injury and had to pull out. Jamie Baker and James Ward have both performed well since returning from illness themselves, and the teenage trio of Bernard Tomic, Ryan Harrison and Grigor Dimitrov have all got enormous potential. We look forward to seeing how they perform against a world-class field here at the AEGON Championships.

-- Edited by steven on Friday 4th of June 2010 10:40:26 AM

Silver · County player

Jamie B I can understand and given that he's made a stirring return to the game, it's about time he got something. James... OK, I'm all for a Brit getting one. I suppose I can't argue with that too much.

Dimitrov, feh. If he goes top 100 in the next 2 years, you might forgive them this one but unless it happens, this is always going to be the "what the hell?" WC. What about last year's boys champion, Kuznetsov? Why is he not getting a chance? Hmmmmm? Tomic is getting the Donald Young treatment at the moment. What happened to him? Hmmmmm? Harrison played well against Wardy yesterday. But...

Eh. Just not sure. Just not sure of why they can't back some of our own lads more. I'm guessing we have a load for qualifying then?

Count Zero · Tennis legend

how low does the Q draw normally drop? last year it was 209 so we could be loking at only Boggo and 4 WC's i guess.

also the queens headline says British Davis Cup players get the WC's is this telling us something about the team for the upcoming turkey tie? or just a reference to players who have previously played DC (which is really quite a lot so is almost pointless as over the last few years we've had Boggo, Eaton, Josh, Evo, Ward + the dubs guys). In fact Baker hasn't represented GB since the Argentina tie back in early 08.

The Magician Santoro · Top national player

Hope they don't have this mentality when it comes to Wimbledon Wildcards, struggling to fathom the reason why they would give Dimitrov a WC, has he done ANYTHING this year? Feel sorry for Boggo, hope he gets an Eastbourne and Wimbledon WC as he has 32 points to defend over that time.

With regards to rankings despiting losing 7 points from the last time the rankings were updated boggo still managed to move up 1 to 159 whilst Jamie Baker has cracked the top 250 and is at 246 and only 27 points off his career high ranking, so hopefully he can get a new career high someone which would be great. Also means that these two should get Wimbledon WC's with the top 250 status

The Magician Santoro · Top national player

Also Oliver Golding, has stated he's back on the grass now next week. Is there a junior event on grass or does that mean he will get a Queens QWC?

Count Zero · Tennis legend

Queens always had a junior event in the past didnt it.

johnnylad · Tennis legend

This is why I asked you how many you were expecting Count...

Count Zero · Tennis legend

at least 3, hoping for 4.

but it is who they have been given too, how many times have other nations given WC's to their 2nd biggest event to our boys.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

An absolute scandal - though I can think of one member of this board who'll be pleased about one of the non-Brit WCs, even though he doesn't deserve it...

steven · Tennis legend

Count Zero wrote:

at least 3, hoping for 4.

but it is who they have been given too, how many times have other nations given WC's to their 2nd biggest event to our boys.

... and boys who aren't actually that good.

I mean, I understand that there aren't that many standout MD WC candidates among the GB men at the moment, but it wouldn't have been hard to find 3 or 4 deserving cases (the two who did get them + Boggo, Wardinator, perhaps Smethurst, for example), but giving them to these particular overseas players, it must feel like a complete stab in the back from the LTA.

I have to say, whatever Dimitrov pays his agent is not enoughm if that agent is clever enough to work the same 'con' on the Queen's WC committee two years running! bleh

Most of the other tournaments that gave him WCs last year seemed to have got wise to it this year.

And let's not forget, Dimitrov's grass court form is so great that he went out in QR1 at Nottingham in straight sets to the player Josh Milton beat in QR2!!

DC:

I'm guessing the DC players reference isn't telling us anything about the team for the July tie, though it's conceivable that those two could be the singles players if Boggo doesn't play for whatever reason.

Re. Q cuts:

From 2001-4, the Queen's qualifying cuts were always way outside the top 500 and there were 7 qualifiers from a 56-player qualifying draw.

Then in 2005, the size of the qualifying draw was cut to 32 (4 qualifiers) and since then, the cut has been around the 250 level, except in 2007 when for some reason far fewer players signed in and Dan Cox was the last QDA ranked 1067!

I thought at the time that perhaps it took 2 years for players to realise how much tighter the cuts had got and that overseas players ranked outside the top 300 didn't bother making the trip, meaning that the cut could drop really fast at the last moment, but if that was the case, then lots of them saw what had happened and came back the following year, and last year then saw the highest cut so far this century.

Queen's qualifying cuts this century (no. of Brits in qualifying including QWCs)

2001 - 683 (8)
2002 - 837 (13)
2003 - 888 (17)
2004 - 886 (19)
2005 - 255 (9)
2006 - 246 (5)
2007 - 1067 (16)
2008 - 268 (4)
2009 - 209 (5)

Where was the ash cloud this week when we really needed it?

Count Zero wrote:

how low does the Q draw normally drop? last year it was 209 so we could be loking at only Boggo and 4 WC's i guess.

also the queens headline says British Davis Cup players get the WC's is this telling us something about the team for the upcoming turkey tie? or just a reference to players who have previously played DC (which is really quite a lot so is almost pointless as over the last few years we've had Boggo, Eaton, Josh, Evo, Ward + the dubs guys). In fact Baker hasn't represented GB since the Argentina tie back in early 08.

-- Edited by steven on Friday 4th of June 2010 12:32:14 PM

RBBOT · Futures qualifying

how many times have other nations given WC's to their 2nd biggest event to our boys.

Boys, maybe not, but then they aren't really that deserving of foreign wildcards. Girls on the other hand: Heather got a Miami QWC. Laura Robson has got a MDWC and a QWC in Luxemborg in the last and today got a MDWC in the Netherlands.

Smidster · Challenger level

Dissapointing yes but this is very much the way the LTA have been going in recent times.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if they give fewer QWC's for Wimbledon than in prior years (6 last year) and only a couple of WC's for the tourney itself