Week 36 - Great Britain F15 ($10,000) - Roehampton (Hard)

Jack Buxton · Club Coach

RE: Week 36 - Great Britain F15 ($10,000) - Roehampton (Hard)

Jack Buxton · Club Coach

Gabb loses the 3rd 3-6.

Jack Buxton · Club Coach

Burn takes the first set 6-1

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Burn wins by 1 & 2.

RJA · Hall of fame

From LTA twitter

Bugby bt Skalsky 3&2
Daniell bt Gabb 67 2&3
Roelofse bt Pauffley 4&3
Jones bt Orton 2&0
Burn bt Kivanda 1&2
Andersen bt Fitzpatrick 4&3

Jack Buxton · Club Coach

Draw updated:
Carpenter won 6-1,6-11
Milton won 6-3,6-2
Slabinksy won 7-6,6-3
Aswat won 6-2,6-1

Fitzy tweeted about his mental state due to finances :(

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

L32: (1) Dan Evans WR 337 defeated (WC) Harry Meehan WR 1876 by 7-6(3) 6-3
L32: Jack Carpenter WR 789 defeated (Q) Nihar Navaporkar UNR by 1 & 1
L32: Miles Bugby WR 1257 defeated (Q) Adam Skalsky UNR by 3 & 2
L32: Richard Gabb WR 805lost to (7) Marcus Daniell (NZL) WR 688 by 7-6(3) 2-6 3-6
L32: (4) Ruan Roelofse (RSA) WR 463 defeated Neil Pauffley WR 728 by 4 & 3
L32: (WC) Myles Orton WR 1646 lost to Joshua Jones WR 932 by 2 & 0
L32: (Q) Aaron Banasik UNR lost to Oliver Hudson WR 1072 by 3 & 0
L32: (Q) Adam Thornton-Brown WR 1737 lost to (6) James Marsalek WR 663 by 1 & 0
L32: (5) Andrew Fitzpatrick WR 464 lost to Jean Andreson (RSA) WR 989 by 4 & 3
L32: Tom Burn WR 783 defeated (Q) Sizya Ernest Kivanda UNR by 1 & 2
L32: (Q) Alexander Jhun UNR defeated Matthieu Roy (FRA) WR 957 by 1 & 1 biggrin
L32: (Q) Isaac Stoute UNR lost to (3) Josh Milton WR 438
L32: (8) Alex Slabinsky WR 727 defeated Jaime Pulgar (ESP) WR 996 by 7-6(4) 6-3
L32: Matt Short WR 767 defeated Manual Sánchez (MEX) WR 754 by 6-3 7-6(5)
L32: (Q) Imran Aswat UNR defeated (WC) Oliver Plaskett UNR by 2 & 1
L32: (WC) James Ireland WR 1507 defeated (LL) Marshall Tutu UNR by 3 & 1

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

L16: (1) Dan Evans WR 337 vs Jack Carpenter WR 789
L16: Miles Bugby WR 1257 vs (7) Marcus Daniell (NZL) WR 688
L16: (4) Ruan Roelofse (RSA) WR 463 vs Joshua Jones WR 932
L16: Oliver Hudson WR 1072 vs (6) James Marsalek WR 663
L16: Jean Andreson (RSA) WR 989 vs Tom Burn WR 783
L16: (Q) Alexander Jhun UNR vs (3) Josh Milton WR 438
L16: (8) Alex Slabinsky WR 727 vs Matt Short WR 767
L32: (Q) Imran Aswat UNR vs (WC) James Ireland WR 1507

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

QF: (1) Jean Anderson & Ruan Roelofse (RSA/RSA) WR 607 vs Marcus Gan & Oliver Gan UNR
QF: (3) Tom Burn & Dan Evans WR 1359 vs Aaron Banasik & Myles Orton UNR
QF: Rowan Isaaks & Adam Slansky UNR vs (4) Miles Bugby & Andrew Fitzpatrick WR 1490
QF: Jack Carpenter & Neil Pauffley WR 2215 vs (2) Marcus Daniell & Manuel Sanchez (NZL/MEX) WR 1040

RJA · Hall of fame

Jack Buxton wrote:
Fitzy tweeted about his mental state due to finances :(

I assume that this translates to something like "played crap due to feeling pressure to win matches for financial reasons". I guess it also explains why he was so upset at the prospect of losing his prize money from the recent British Tour event.

Now I am about to raise a controversial point, so I best get my caveats in. I have a lot of time for Fitzy, he is decent player and he seems like a pretty good guy so this isn't aimed at him in any way shape or form. Can someone please give me a single good reason why somebody should be able to make a decent living playing on the Futures tour. Apart from the players themselves Futures events in Britain are of close to zero interest to almost everyone. Outside of events held at clubs like Frinton, where some club members show up, they attract a handful of spectators at best (I have been to events where I think I was the only person outside of players, their entourages and officials who was there).

On another controversial point I see that Fitzy's original tweeted prompted an interesting conversation. I tended to agree with Evo's point, although he is hardly the best person to make it, that Goodall got a very nice pay day from Wimbledon. Someone like Goodall who has picked up £30K+ prize money year to date is not in the same position as Fitzy who has picked up less than £10K.

indiana · Tennis legend

If Fitzy's mental state is seriously effecting his tennis, he seriously needs to get professional help for that, like now.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

LTA Twitter scores:

Marsalek bt Hudson 61 63

Milton bt Jhun 36 63 63

Daniel (NZL) bt Bugby 75 63

Ireland bt Aswat 62 62

James Ireland's certainly making the best of his good fortune! wink

-- Edited by Stircrazy on Wednesday 5th of September 2012 12:50:09 PM

Ratty · County player

RJA wrote:
Now I am about to raise a controversial point, so I best get my caveats in. I have a lot of time for Fitzy, he is decent player and he seems like a pretty good guy so this isn't aimed at him in any way shape or form. Can someone please give me a single good reason why somebody should be able to make a decent living playing on the Futures tour. Apart from the players themselves Futures events in Britain are of close to zero interest to almost everyone. Outside of events held at clubs like Frinton, where some club members show up, they attract a handful of spectators at best (I have been to events where I think I was the only person outside of players, their entourages and officials who was there).

I'm not sure that anyone makes a decent living playing on the Futures tour. For example, Boy Westerhof is currently ranked at 201, and has made $16,062 in prize money from 29 tournaments this year. With his travelling expenses to come out of that, he'll have earned nothing.

Is this a "bad" thing? Well, pro sport is a typical "pyramid" activity. Acting is another. A very few people earn very large amounts of money, but most earn next to nothing.

There is an entertaining chapter on the subject in Freakonomics, called "Why do drug dealers still live with their Moms?":

"The problem with crack dealing is the same as in every other glamour profession: a lot of people are competing for very few prizes."

Yeah, that's pretty tough for the ones who slog away for years at the bottom, but hey - they have the choice of doing something else.

And what's the alternative?

It's all very well to recommend increasing the prize money, say to make all $15k's into $50k's. But then that of course is RJA's point, in that it WILL enable mediocre players to earn a living for doing something which few people are interested in. This could be counter-productive if one is trying to encourage "hunger".

Let the market decide, as it is currently doing. If the audience for Murray v Federer is 15,000 paying £100 per ticket on Centre Court, and umpteen more millions on the TV (I'm paying £23 for a month of Sky Sports just to watch the US Open); and the audience for Goodall v Evans is, er, rather less than that - well, that says it all really, doesn't it?

RJA · Hall of fame

Ratty wrote:
RJA wrote:
Now I am about to raise a controversial point, so I best get my caveats in. I have a lot of time for Fitzy, he is decent player and he seems like a pretty good guy so this isn't aimed at him in any way shape or form. Can someone please give me a single good reason why somebody should be able to make a decent living playing on the Futures tour. Apart from the players themselves Futures events in Britain are of close to zero interest to almost everyone. Outside of events held at clubs like Frinton, where some club members show up, they attract a handful of spectators at best (I have been to events where I think I was the only person outside of players, their entourages and officials who was there).
I'm not sure that anyone makes a decent living playing on the Futures tour. For example, Boy Westerhof is currently ranked at 201, and has made $16,062 in prize money from 29 tournaments this year. With his travelling expenses to come out of that, he'll have earned nothing.

Oh I absolutely agree that no one makes a decent living playing futures. It is just that some people seem to think that it should be possible to do so.

LordBrownof · Futures level

I think your point is much less controversial than you think. Most of us quite agree that spending 10 years toiling on the Futures Circuit is a fairly fruitless activity. Futures to me should be solely a development opportunity, a stage of your career that you either progress through within a time period. In Fitzy's case, he clearly (and there is some evidence of this) feels that he could and should be playing at a higher level - i.e. moving onto Challengers to see whether he has what it takes it take his game further onto the ATP.

(I don't know what the average age of Futures players this week or last week were, but I would hope it would be around 22)

And for someone who has been circling around Futures for 5-6 years, playing solidly, they should really think about whether they want to spend their twenties or their thirties finding something they're actually good at. We could certainly point out a few British players as examples here.