Predictions for 2006

kundalini · Specialist Reporter + Intermediate Club Player

Predictions for 2006

Sally · Grand Slam Champion

I wish Alex could live up to some of this potential and improve his mental strength. Maybe he`d be on the verge of the top 100 if he could start winning tight matches.

I felt sorry for Richard this year - he had a lot of tough opening rounds which meant he often didn`t get past the first round. That must have restricted his ranking a fair bit points-wise, so I hope your prediction is accurate!

I`d love to see Richard, Matt, Jamie and Colin make real inroads this year. What are their game styles?

Like you say, Alan is hard to predict. I remember one of the commentators saying during the Davis Cup that he hasn`t got the weapons to do much better than he is doing. Do you think that`s true? He seemed decent enough when he played Igor Andreev at Queens ( but I`m not sure if he really believed he could win it, even though Andreev didn`t look comfortable himself on the grass).

What happened to Josh this year? I saw him play Rusedski on tv at Queens but since then he seems to have been in freefall. Has he been injured?

Sheddie · administrator

Answers to your questions dippykitty:

Game styles:

Richard Bloomfield: His major weapon is his serve, it can do real damage especially on fast courts, it's consistently big. His returning is also a strength, he can really take the initiative on his opponent's service games and put them under pressure. He's impressed spectators with his cool nerve as he often pulls out big serves on key points - a trademark of a top 100 player. Richard is a baseliner but does lack a little power compared to top 100 players and his backhand is a weakness.

Jamie Baker: Jamie's a very solid baseliner, his strengths are his forehand, speed around the court and his fitness - he puts a lot of fitness training in. Jamie has a solid serve - he needs to add more pace to it and make it a weapon. He looks to attack with his forehand and his backhand is a consistent shot. He describes his game as a high tempo game, looking to take the ball early, keep his opponent on the move and take control of the rallies. He isn't a player who blasts opponents off the court but what distinguishes Jamie is his mental strength and determination. He has the same fiery determination to win of Andy Murray and he'll never give up. He wins an awful lot of tight 3 setters this way and it's a characteristic which many lack and could take him far. At times, Jamie can look a bit like another Alan Mackin, but Jamie's game has more potential - he's looking to attack, not to counter-punch. He needs to add more weight to his shots by filling out.

I'll post more tomorrow morning

kundalini · Specialist Reporter + Intermediate Club Player

Josh had a great 2004 but found himself not quite high enough to get direct entry into Challengers. Really you need to be 240 - 250 otherwise you are talking qualifying most of the time. In the UK you might get some wildcards if you are lucky.

So Josh played a mixed schedule of Satellites, Futures, Challengers and Wimbledon. He didn't dominate the Satellite events as Mark has tended to do in recent times so that's 12 weeks spent on Satellites without a great deal of reward in terms of points. In Challengers he was 4-4 but he failed to qualify 3 times.

I think he was injured for much of September/ October which didn't help.

My fear is that a number of brits may find themselves in a similar position next year where they have to win Futures just to stay still. David Sherwood is another player who suffered playing a mixed schedule.

Sally · Grand Slam Champion

Thanks for the info Tomorrow I`ll be brave and make some predictions which will no doubt be completely wrong come this time next year!

kundalini · Specialist Reporter + Intermediate Club Player

Another prediction - I think that the likes of Jamie Baker, Matt Smith, Col Fleming and Josh Goodall will get a high percentage of their ranking points from the new 50k Satellites and 15k Futures rather than on the Challenger circuit. In effect beating the same group of players as this year but for more points.

Like or not, the Mark Hilton approach appears to work well upto about 200 in the rankings. And few brits are going to want to go abroad to take a chance on Challenger qualifying.

Quite a few of the 10k Futures have become 15k events. The Calendar has Great Britain 1,2, 4 and 5 as 15k.

Sheddie · administrator

Game styles continued:

Colin Fleming: Colin has a large amount of variety in his game. He is strongest at the net - being a fine volleyer and a superb mover [which is why he's enjoyed so much success in doubles aswell]. Being 6ft 2 he has a massive serve but needs to improve its consistency and then it'll be a real weapon. From the baseline, he has a superb double-handed backhand which is a real strong shot and he wins a lot of points via the 2 hander down the line changing the direction of the ball. His weakness is his forehand which is not consistent enough. Colin could serve-volley 100% of the time but due to most players having such big returns and good passing shots, it's not practical until he gets his 1st serve percentage up higher. Instead he mixes his game up with playing from the baseline and attacking the net on short and mid-court balls and on key points he often serve-volleys for the surprise factor. Colin's main weakness is mentally, he often gets too down on himself when matches are slipping away and doesn't keep fighting eg: he played a match in Jersey and was 5-1 up in set 1 against Tourte but let the lead slip, got down on himself and lost the set and the 2nd set 6-2. He's fine when he has lots of support eg: in the Scottish events from friends and family or when he's travelling with an LTA squad.

I don't reckon that Alan Mackin will make it into the top 200 unless he develops a real, major weapon from somewhere, eg: Bloomfield's serve, Fleming's backhand etc. The problem is that his game's too lightweight, he's a consistent player - a dogged baseliner who really makes his opponent win the matches by outhitting him but at his level too many people can do that. He's got an ok serve and forehand but so has everyone else in the top 400. When we saw him against Andreev at Queens, he looked quite good but Andreev was dreadful. The match was basically, Mackin scrambling around the baseline for everything and winning points through Andreev's errors.
I admire Alan because he's got an excellent attitude towards tennis - he works really hard on his fitness and his game and he's always willing to travel. All the LTA coaches have said, if only players with more natural talent like Bogdanovic, Parmar and Marray had Mackin's mental strength and determination. In order for Alan to progress further up the rankings he needs to play more events on fast surfaces which give his serve and forehand that extra bite. He needs to get it out of his head that he's a clay-court specialist - he's hardly had any decent results on clay. He lost in clay-court satellites to players ranked around 700 and in weak ATP qualifying draws on clay where he was the top seed he's had to get through as a lucky loser. On clay, Mackin's serve and forehand are not as effective and he will lose to players with more strength and variety.

eblunt · Club Coach

kundalini wrote:

Time for wild predictions for 2006. I can't see any more brits breaking into the top 100 in 2006. You either need to be incredibly talented and benefit from a large number of wildcards or you need to be very consistent at Challenger level. Right now we don't have anyone in either category though a few players are moving in the right direction. So Alex Bogdanovic - 140 (Alex tends to produce a couple of great tournaments and a lot of first round defeats but if you take a careful look at 2005 compared with 2004 he is actually doing a lot better at getting past the first round. I think we will see him continue this trend and start to see a few more semis and quarters in tournaments where he has previously been knocked out early on) Richard Bloomfield - 185 (Really impressed with Richard this year. I can see him being a solid Challenger player next season. And perhaps attempting to qualify for the odd ATP event) Arvind Parmar - 200 (Arvind seems to be on a plateau - a lot of quarters, a few semis) Martin Lee - 215 (anything is possible with Martin. He might shoot past everyone to be the number 4 player but 215 seems about par) Matt Smith - 240 (I think Matt will continue to build on his great 2005 but it won't be easy winning matches at Challenger level) Jamie Baker - 250 (Similarly, I think Jamie will end up playing a mixture of Futures and Challengers) Colin Fleming - 265 (Hopefully Col will be able to make the step up to Challenger level) Alan Mackin - no idea (Alan has had such a strange 2005 that it is almost impossible to tell what he'll being doing in 2006. Will we see more attempts to qualify for ATP events? More lucky loser spots? More satellites? Challengers? Will he be playing on clay?) Josh Goodall - 250 (Josh had a disappointing 2005 but I can see him in amongst a whole pack of brits around the 250 mark. The Futures/Challengers transition is a difficult one and it seems to take players time to adjust)

Adam Lownsbrough - 1524 ( or wherever the 1pt his dad buys him will put him)

Sheddie · administrator

eblunt wrote: " Adam Lownsbrough - 1524 ( or wherever the 1pt his dad buys him will put him)"

I expect he'll manage to get one into San Remo, because his Dad's firm is the main sponsor for that tournament. I wonder how many more years he'll continue like this on the tour. He's 21 now and surely he's got to go to uni at some stage and try and get a proper job.

It would be so funny if you could buy wildcards into Wimbledon. We could have Federer v Lownsbrough opening centre court on the 1st Monday. I wonder if Adam would manage to get any points at all ??

Sheddie · administrator

Josh Goodall had a fabulous start to the year, reaching a futures final and reaching a challenger quarter-final. After that he tailed off a bit after reaching a career high ranking of 297, just reaching a couple of futures quarters. I think he had quite a bad knee injury which set him back quite a bit.

From what I've seen of Goodall, his game's just built around a big serve and not much else. His serve is really big and he gets loads of aces and service winners each match. He's really good at attacking short balls and putting them away but he doesn't have much of a baseline game [just consistent on both sides, no real venom in the hitting] so if he has a service game when he misses a few 1st serves he's in trouble. At Wimbledon, he was just rallying from the baseline with a clay-courter and then eventually he'd make an error. If he can develop his two-handed forehand so it was as effective as his serve, he could be a top 100 player.

After Wimbledon, he narrowy failed to qualify for the main draw of a 50K challenger in Cordoba but has done well since August in futures and satellites. 1 futures title, 1 futures semi and 3 satellite semis is his autumn record.

My predictions:

Bogdanovic: 120-130: The signs have been promising that maybe finally 2006 is the year that Alex starts to realise his enormous potential. The new coach seems to be determined to work him harder [he only used to spend about 3 hours a day practising !!] and is getting the right attitude into Alex. As you say kundalini, he hasn't been losing as many 1st round matches abroad and he hasn't got many points to defend from March until July. If he can do well indoors in Jan and Feb and then maybe mix in some challengers with ATP qualies until May hopefully he'll have a good lot of points. I don't expect the clay-court season will reap many rewards but come June, he's done well in the past at Surbiton, Queens and Nottingham and there's no reason why he can't repeat those successes and it's now high time he won a match at Wimbledon.

Parmar: 210: Arvind's coming towards the end of his career and I don't see him making any real ranking leaps. He's too good to slip back down into the futures so I reckon he'll just about maintain his ranking

I'll post some more ranking predictions a bit later

Sally · Grand Slam Champion

What usually happens when I make predictions is that I give everyone a good laugh a year later when it`s all ridiculously wrong but here goes.

Bogdanovic : If he starts the season strongly I`m going to say 110. If he doesn`t, I`ll go with somewhere around 150.

Bloomfield: Just into the top 200 provided he doesn`t keep getting nightmare first rounds, especially in the US Challengers.

Parmar: 190. I can`t help feeling it`s a bit late for anything more than that now.

I`ve got to feed the cat so I`ll do the rest when I get back.

Drew · Dec 7, 2005

dippykitty wrote:

What usually happens when I make predictions is that I give everyone a good laugh a year later when it`s all ridiculously wrong but here goes. Bogdanovic : If he starts the season strongly I`m going to say 110. If he doesn`t, I`ll go with somewhere around 150. Bloomfield: Just into the top 200 provided he doesn`t keep getting nightmare first rounds, especially in the US Challengers. Parmar: 190. I can`t help feeling it`s a bit late for anything more than that now. I`ve got to feed the cat so I`ll do the rest when I get back.

.... feed the cat.....LOL

Dont you just toss it out the door to get its own food....

Enjoying all your predictions........havent got to grips with how all the other Brits got on last year but I just sense that Jamie Baker and Alex Bogdanovic could be the big movers....probably down to the coaching regimes thay are now with !

Sally · Grand Slam Champion

Lee - 230. If he gets the right draws (like Sunderland) he can improve his ranking at least 100 places but he`ll have to be consistent.

Smith - 250. I think that involves getting something like 56 points.

Baker - 260

Hilton - 275

Goodall- 280

Fleming - 290

Marray/ Sherwood/ Mackin : 250-320. With Marray and Sherwood I think it might hinge on how well they do at Wimbledon and the other grass events. If Marray could get out of the first round next year it would really help his confidence, and Sherwood has the second round (?) to defend. Mackin - I really don`t know how to predict his ranking at all but I agree about not doing so many clay tournaments.

Slabinksy - top 500 if he can be consistent.

Watch all my predictions go very wrong - people will probably either do a lot better or a lot worse. I`m so bad at predictions which is why I don`t put any bets on matches!

Sheddie · administrator

Predictions continued:

Mark Hilton: 250: He's rumoured to have retired but if not, he doesn't have the finances to compete regularly abroad and has an awful lot of points to defend in GB futures and satellites. With the standard getting inevitably more competitive due to the upgrading of many to 15K with more foreigners and the presence of Baker, Fleming , Smith, Goodall and Slabinsky I don't see him being able to defend his points.

Sheddie · administrator

Matt Smith and Martin Lee: I can see them both leaping around 100 places to about 210. They'll both start playing more challengers and getting used to that level. In Martin's case, he has the class to go far in lots of challengers - he just needs to string some consistent performances together and get some good draws. Matt is more of n unknown quantity but judging from his success in futures and satellites, he's too good for that level now. He's a good athlete and has good forcing groundstrokes. Challengers will show quickly whether he currently has the necessary weapons to progress. Both Lee and Smith will benefit from wildcards in the grass-court season and hopefully we'll see both of them in the main draw of Wimbledon.

Alan Mackin: I reckon he'll maintain his level of around 250. He could maybe go a bit higher if he manages to win an ATP rd1 match or if he has a good run in one of the challengers. He doesn't have the weapons in his game to beat many top 200 players unless they have an off-day so I still see plenty of 1st and 2nd round exits in challengers for Alan. He'll probably play quite a few futures and satellites like last season but you can't progress very far with the limited number of points on offer there. His best chances of success lie in the grass court season or at the beginning and the end of 2006 when the indoor tournaments are held on fast courts.