I know this subject has raised its head before and I am not intending to raise it in depth here but, I have suffered a fit of depression over the weekend with some of our results.
I have been encouraged by some of what is happening in the sport at the lower levels. We have had great success at Junior Grand Slam levels the last few years, a few have done well at futures level and built their rankings, quite a few titles won from different players. Like all I would like to see more challenger events in the country so, on Saturday, it felt like 7th heaven with what was on offer.
We had finals day for two challengers, qualies starting for two more, and qualies starting for two main tour events. I was working yet had live score windows open all over my computer. By Saturday night though we seemed to be wiped out!
I accept most of our players were playing aginst higher ranked opponents and therefore the results really just ran true to form. I think you would hope though that a few would rise to the occassion and upset the form book. We hardly achieved a win for a GB player against a foreign player.
In the ladies we have four top girls of course, all do pick up wins at the highest level but when will anybody apart from Andy do so in the gents? We have good doubles success but in singles? If Bloomers makes the main draw at Nottingham that will be the high point of the grass court season so far and thats just sad.
Its not just the East Europeans that seem to win through. Most of the drawsheets had Spaniards, French, Italians, Portugese, Turkish all winning matches. Americans, obviously, Canadians as well but also Asians from China, Japan, Taiwan were all winning matches. Surely then should have been a smattering of GB players in the mix given the promise we have been showing and that it was home tournaments.
So cheer me up here. Are we going to see a James Ward type run in the next 3 weeks? Will anybody win matches at Queens or Eastbourne? Qualify like Chris Eaton at Wimbledon or, dare I dream, win just a single match in the main draw. Or are these events above our players and, when its all over we'll go back nicely futures pick up some wins there as usual?
And, why is it like this? Will it change over the next few years or are we destined for GB tennis to be like this for the foreseeable future?
-- Edited by Shhh on Monday 11th of June 2012 06:01:09 AM
Although on the whole disappointing this weekend one thing to factor in is that like last year there are 2 tournaments (Nottingham + Queens/Birmingham). What that means is that players who previously would have been left in qualifying for the Tour events end up with main draw wildcards, so there are far fewer players with realistic chances of upsets.
