steven wrote:

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Mervatron wrote:

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well with 90,000 competative players thats not suprising.

Hasn't got them a male GS winner for a good while though

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Obviously the GEMs have a lot more strength in depth than us and are perfectly set up to do well in DC, but it is odd that they can't even match GB on slam semi-finalists since the year 2000 - since then it has been:

GBR 12 (8 for Muzz & Tim's last 4)

FRA 10 (Grosjean 4, Tsonga 3, Clément 1, Gasquet 1, Monfils 1)

 

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Yes, but as has been said they have huge more stength in depth which all things being equal gives them so much more of a chance of finding many very good players.

We, with our lack of strength in depth, have in many ways been very lucky Muzza arrived, and in many ways not through the system.. That puts all figues at the very top level out of kilt as they will tend to be when narrowing to the very top individuals, but surely does not hide the truth about how things really are.  They have so many more very good players, making a very good living out of tennis.  Let's not kid ourselves at all.  France is so many miles ahead of us in tennis in so many ways.

-- Edited by indiana on Wednesday 14th of September 2011 12:21:26 PM

Spectator wrote:

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This is a genuine question, Stephen -- you're the statistician, I'm not -- but is it really odd that we beat the French in Grand Slam semi-finalists? Presumably once you get to the top four of a Slam, the potential (as I see Indiana's just noted) for one or two people to skew the record is considerable. Ergo, for example, for the years 2000 to 2011, Switzerland has more semifinalists than the UK and France combined.

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Oops, I should have tried to convey a bit better what I thought was odd about it1 I wasn't trying to hide the truth about how things really are (Indiana's point) and you're right, it's not that odd that a country with one or two really good players can get more grand slam semi-finalists over the course of a decade than a country with more strength in depth.

What did seem amazing to me (and I accept that the GB comparison was a bit of a red herring, I just couldn't resist! ) was that with all their strength in depth, France have only managed 10 slam semi-finalists over the last dozen years.

Not that odd in the context of the same four players getting to virtually every slam SF, perhaps, but that's only been happening for the last couple of years - before that, it was only Fed who locked up a SF place in every single slam and before 2003, there was a lot of variation among the semi-finalists.

Then again, the increased dominance of  a 'big 4' may explain why Grosjean has reached more SFs than any of the others - Tsonga, Monfils and Gasquet are probably all better players than Seba, but they are all part of the Rafa/Nole/Muzz generation, perhaps getting shut out more than they would have in a more 'normal' era in much the same way as it's hard to believe Andy wouldn't have won some slams in a more normal era.

I agree that tennis in France is massively more healthy than tennis in GB overall, as I'm sure anyone would, but I'm pretty sure that if the UK was in the same state, the British media would still be getting on the LTA's and the player's backs complaining about the lack of players going really deep in slams!

Well done to Fitzy, but yes most of Evo's winning scores of late, let alone his defeats, have been rather concerning.