At least two Brits in the FQR by the looks of it - Oli tweets: "Me and @Marzi7 just grinding down europeans on the dirt both in 3 tight sets .. That's what brits to best isn't it ?"

Really interested to see what Golding and Marsalek especially can do here. Not being an expert on the juniors, I get the feeling that Oli should be winning this kind of match, or at least getting close? It seems like this season is sort of crunch time for their age group, so would top 800/900 by the end of the year be a reasonable target, do we think? 

It's definitely good to see the likes of Oli, James & Jack in Futures MDs though. Back-to-back Madrid titles might be a bit much to ask for this week though!

JM1138 wrote:

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Really interested to see what Golding and Marsalek especially can do here. Not being an expert on the juniors, I get the feeling that Oli should be winning this kind of match, or at least getting close? It seems like this season is sort of crunch time for their age group, so would top 800/900 by the end of the year be a reasonable target, do we think? 

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 I think the target for Oli and George (Morgan) should be much higher. The gold standard for juniors is to be top 500 ATP by the end of their junior career. Usually up to 10 make it, and most of these feature in the top 100 at some point in their career. The current top 1993 boy Tiago Fernandes has just reached a Challenger final and  will move into the top 400.

There are of course plenty of exceptions who have come through later, but most of these (eg Henman 771 and Davydenko 658 ) had insignificant junior careers and improved rapidly in their late teens. Oli and George have already achieved in junior tennis, so it is important that they try to keep up with their peers, and they have a lot to do.

I did find it of some concern that in the recent Akhenaten rankings ( which are Akhenaten's special rankings that take account of the opponents that wins and losses are against ) that in the 9 months since Wimbledon last year Oli appears to have fallen back in overall world terms and has been overtaken by quite a number of his peers.

Hopefully Oli will soon start making clear forward progress again because he is a real talent, who one would certainly think was at the very least top 100 potential.

However, David's post does give some indication of where one would be hoping Oli ( and George ) would have advanced to in senior rankings come the end of this year ( the end of their junior careers ).

Top 500 currently represents around 60 ranking points.  Alex Ward ( the GB no 13 ) is ranked WR 499 on 62 points.

As a balance, someone did point out in another thread that Oli does have an attacking style that may take longer to really groom and come through.  He is also one of the younger 1993 boys, being born on 29th September.  George was born on 7th February.