Week 31 - Challenger ($100K) - Vancouver, Canada - Hard

andyjmr · Intermediate Club Player

RE: Week 31 - Challenger ($100K) - Vancouver, Canada - Hard

Josh · Challenger level

When was the last time a Brit made 2 consecutive Challenger finals? Wasn't Andy, he had 2 Challenger QFs and an ATP round 2 in between his Aptos and Binghampton 05 wins.

steven · Tennis legend

Josh wrote:
When was the last time a Brit made 2 consecutive Challenger finals? Wasn't Andy, he had 2 Challenger QFs and an ATP round 2 in between his Aptos and Binghampton 05 wins.

Boggo winning Valencia then reaching the Cardiff Final in April 2007 - on different continents and with no gap week in between in that case.

steven · Tennis legend

Wardy winning her also means that of the 7 players in either GB top 7 who played this (last) week:

- 2 (Ward & Baker) won titles
- 4 (Bally, Anne, Laura & Boggo) lost to the eventual winner
- 1 (Milton) lost to someone who lost to the eventual winner

(it doesn't look like that's going to happen again this week, unfortunately!)

Shhh · Challenger level

Fantastic for James, the highest points challanger win for a Brit I can remember.

Boggo had a very tight game with him. Though he picked up 18pts, once again it seems he is not getting the true points reward for his level of play.

steven · Tennis legend

James confirmed up 30 at WR 144.

This is the first time we have had two GB men in the top 150 since March last year.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

what a great week for Wardy. it really has been a fantastic summer for him. Where has his super serve come from? the 2 big results were over Chovka and Boggo, vs Cho he won 1 less point in the match and vs Boggo he won only 3 more and he really deserved to take the title here.

it's so funny as just b4 Queens we had a discussion (with Ratty i think) about a player building on a start , and there was a talk that you can't change a tennis player overnight, and whilst i agree with that i think a lot of the time there is hard work going on in the background, that we generally as outsiders, don't get to see, then if it does all click it's seems so sudden. It would look like this fitness trainer has certainly done wonders, possibly not just on his fitness but maybe also on the mental fighting side which is so important. But also we know money is tight for a lot of tennis players, a run to the Queens SF along with the 1st rd wimby paycheck etc, that can really lift a burden off the players back, they are no longer under the pressure of winning to play their costs etc. i know pressure cna make you fight harder ibn certain cases, but these guys are already under enough as it is.

As for Boggo obviously it's a shame, as Shhh says it seems he's just not getting the rub of the green right now(does he ever?) and you do wonder how would he have done if had beaten Ward. But it was a good week for him, he's on the way back at the moment, but i hope the performances he's show here demonstrate that it's only a matter of time before he;s back much higher, don't forget he's only played half the number of events most of the guys around him have.

johnnylad · Tennis legend

Go'ed Wardy. Really starting to achieve to his potential by winning challengers and competing better. Any chance of a low seeding for US Open qualies now?

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

steven wrote:
James confirmed up 30 at WR 144. This is the first time we have had two GB men in the top 150 since March last year.

And he's got his picture in glorious Technicolor on the Challenger page of the ATP site! biggrin

steven · Tennis legend

Stircrazy wrote:
steven wrote:
James confirmed up 30 at WR 144. This is the first time we have had two GB men in the top 150 since March last year.

And he's got his picture in glorious Technicolor on the Challenger page of the ATP site!

I'd just noticed that too - hope the curse of being featured on that page doesn't send his Binghamton chances down the Lu! (not so subtle reference to last week's featured player!)

Mervatron · Masters Series Champion

Well Done James. Great stuff.

Hope he can keep on winning this week too.

goldfish · Futures qualifying

Fab stuff this week. So pleased to see that the Queen's run wasn't a one-off.

Didn't Jamie Murray lose to the winning doubles team this week too?

philwrig · Hall of fame

Just had a look at the ranking points and what it will take for Wardy to get into the top 100 before his Queen's points drop off.
JW ranking 144 points 386
Person ranked 100 points 533. Therefore requires an additional 147 points.
Ranking points to come off before the end of 2011 105.
Ranking points to come off in 2012 before Queen's only 43.
He also has 4 zero pointers included in his 18 total.

If I was a betting man, JW is a dead cert to be top 100 sometime next year assuming he can keep up this level of form and doesn't get injured.

Also noticed that he got more points for this win than he did for reaching semi's of Queen's interesting.

Shhh · Challenger level

Question for Steven (and others).

Martin Lee and his Newport final in 2000 would have scored a 100pts plus

James got 100pts for this win and last year Bloomers 102pts for his semi final run last year. Has a Brit scored a points total of a similar magnitude (given the points value change a few years back) in the years in between outside of Andy Murray, Tim & Greg?????? I can't remember a 3rd round in a Grand Slam for example, or a challenger title of as much prize money.

Just trying to work out how good a win this was for James in the context of British recent achievments.

steven · Tennis legend

philwrig wrote:
Just had a look at the ranking points and what it will take for Wardy to get into the top 100 before his Queen's points drop off.
JW ranking 144 points 386
Person ranked 100 points 533. Therefore requires an additional 147 points.
Ranking points to come off before the end of 2011 105.
Ranking points to come off in 2012 before Queen's only 43.
He also has 4 zero pointers included in his 18 total.

If I was a betting man, JW is a dead cert to be top 100 sometime next year assuming he can keep up this level of form and doesn't get injured.

Also noticed that he got more points for this win than he did for reaching semi's of Queen's interesting.

More points but only half as much money LOL

I'm very busy today but I'll look into Shhh's interesting question later if nobody else has in the meantime. It's a bit complicated by the change in the ranking points system a few years ago, but that affected the higher level ATP events & slams the most so it should be possible to come up with a decent comparison.