ATP & WTA rankings of the 25th best Brits over time

Spectator · All-time great

RE: ATP & WTA rankings of the 25th best Brits over time

indiana · Tennis legend

philwrig wrote:
If you'd seen Oli basically demolish a decent futures field on green clay earlier this year, you would have very high hopes for his senior career. I did and I do.

Interesting. Yes, that's what I would have suspected he can do. He has a good base to now try and build more consistency.

-- Edited by indiana on Wednesday 21st of November 2012 11:29:16 PM

korriban · Challenger level

I'm coming off the fence to push the debate and put a marker down.

Alex: My guess is that he won't make it back inside 200 again. Watched a bit of Alex in his last match in the USA - very nice shot making, point construction and of course a great backhand. But very little power on serve and groundstrokes, which alas seems to be a must-have these days, even for the great athletes and retreivers. At 28 years old I'd be surprised he'll find a miracle to up his power, and (how do I say this nicely) he wasn't looking the fittest I've ever seen him.

James: I'm sure he'll make it back into the top 200, probably inside 150 again. Not sure about 100.

Jamie could push him closely if he finds 10 mph extra power and 2 or 3 points worth of easy plays when he's ahead - my guess is he'll float between 175 and 300 depending on season and form. A Wimbledon win or two could change all this.

I don't think Josh will get back into the top 200, given his difficulty in breaking through in Challengers and that fact that he'll probably have a LOT more competition for GB Futures points in the next year or two from the guys coming through.

We all seem confident about Kyle, and my sense (from the outside in) is that there seems to be a bond and a shared seriousness and work ethic between him and Luke and Liam - I think they could benefit the most from his likely rise up the game - i.e. they will try to outwork and outperform each other. This is a good thing!! Hence 2 out of 3 and hopefully a full set.

Of the rest, there's quite a few who COULD break through (Neil, the 3 Dans, Ashley, James). To avoid fence splinters I'll vote for Neil and James (who played VERY well against Donksoy at Loughborough - tried to win it and attack - but there was a lot of physical/mental strength in the Russian: he did EXACTLY the same to a lower ranked opponent today in Siberia, winning from a set and 2-5 down).

But Oli is the only player who is being regularly touted as a top 100/top 50 prospect (eg his sponsorship by Ricoh). For me, its very early days, and there is still a big question mark over him. Not expecting him to win every week - not at all. But for a top prospect I'd have expected a few more demolitions of lesser opponents (i.e. unplayable when on form), a few less inexplicable losses to lower ranked opponents or seeming capitulations, and a few less thrown and broken racquets. If he isn't upto at least the 250 mark this time next year (in other words clear and visible progress to Challenger level), I think it may prove hard going for him mentally, especially if his junior peer group continues to outperform him (Vesely, Thiem, Saville, Kubler). His time in Miami shoud be a real eye opener.

Finally thanks again to Steven for all these fantastic stats. Would love to have the same discussion for the women, but probably less exciting. It seems as though we may have have to skip a few years as the most likely starlets appear to be in the 1996-1999 age group, aged 13-16 today.

indiana · Tennis legend

Oli's an interesting one and I know korriban has spoken quite a bit about his doubts and why he could see Oli going quite a bit in the wrong direction ( as well as the right direction too ), eg,. how his matches have panned out and his temperament at times.

i have much less doubts, which is why I have him along with James W, Kyle and of course Andy as my odds on players for the top 200 in the next 3 years. The others I think might make it I have discussed in my previous post here.

Different folk develop at different paces, both emotionally and tactically, and in his second basically full season on the tour he has advanced from WR 643 to probably end the year about WR 460. In the general prediction competition for ranking in early November he was WR 418 against the average prediction of us ( if anything generally optimistic ) crowd of WR 422 ( I went a bit higher at WR 375 ). So he is not really falling short of general expectations here.

His own target for the year was WR 350 so he will fall short of what I thought was a reasonable target and would have no doubt hoped to do a bit better. As I indicated, I thought he might be a bit higher too.

He is still generally moving in the right direction and can rise to the occasion with a pretty high level "best" such as at Wimbledon aginst Andreev. In any young player, I always look at what can they do at their best ( served me well with never losing faith at all with say Laura ). With a high "best" level then work has to be done on consistency, temperament etc and whatever else is stopping that higher level being achieved more consistently, and then streadily also improve that "best". Without that relatively high "best" level, as is the case for most of the GB top 25, I just don't see them as potential top 200 players.

How high Oli and Kyle will ultimately go will depend on so many things, largely eminating from themselves, but I do maintain both will probably be top 200 by this time in 2015. Kyle of course is the younger ( 2 junior years if just 16 months actually ) so is certainly ahead of Oli in progress against age just now, but progress can be so variable at these ages ( and later for the boys than girls ). Just look at say where Liam was last year, certainly appeared to have gone into reverse this year, but sounds have been good from himself and Rusedski of late, with they say results on what they have been working on, and recent results have backed this up. I still personally put Oli and Kyle quite a bit ahead of Liam and Luke in how high they will ultimately go, but will be watching all with real interest next year.

philwrig · Hall of fame

If you'd seen Oli basically demolish a decent futures field on green clay earlier this year, you would have very high hopes for his senior career. I did and I do.

korriban · Challenger level

philwrig wrote:
If you'd seen Oli basically demolish a decent futures field on green clay earlier this year, you would have very high hopes for his senior career. I did and I do.

Philip. I didn't (but I appreciated your tweets during the tournament and share your enthusiasm) and I absolutely do as well (very high hopes). Just some nagging doubts raised by a series of very surprising scorelines immediately after the grass season had finished and then to a lesser extent at season's end. Sorry!

Madeline · Admin:Moderator + Tennis Legend

This is a great discussion. I have nothing to add, but do keep it up, guys. It's really enlivening the year-end blues for me.

steven · Tennis legend

I've merged Bob's post into the thread that was started late last year (the full table as at mid-November is at http://bit.ly/YfBhnV), since it effectively updates that thread. He didn't miss any of the top 12 countries - the only missing ones (unless any more countries have managed to get a 35th ranked player in the last 4 months) are Austria, India, Romania, Korea and China.

Quite a drop for France in the last 4 months (226 to 270, though still top on this measure), USA (284 to 351 and now 3rd behind Spain), Argentina (326 to 382 and now 5th behind Germany) - 8th placed Brazil (624 to 566) is the only country in the top 10 with a significant rise in the ranking of their 25th best player, though the same will be true of us on Monday.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

steven wrote:
I've merged Bob's post into the thread that was started late last year (the full table as at mid-November is at http://bit.ly/YfBhnV), since it effectively updates that thread. He didn't miss any of the top 12 countries - the only missing ones (unless any more countries have managed to get a 35th ranked player in the last 4 months) are Austria, India, Romania, Korea and China.
Quite a drop for France in the last 4 months (226 to 270, though still top on this measure), USA (284 to 351 and now 3rd behind Spain), Argentina (326 to 382 and now 5th behind Germany) - 8th placed Brazil (624 to 566) is the only country in the top 10 with a significant rise in the ranking of their 25th best player, though the same will be true of us on Monday.

Thanks Steven. I was beginning to wonder where my post had gone. Haven't seen this thread before but it is obviously the logical place for my post.

steven · Tennis legend

Bob in Spain wrote:
steven wrote:
I've merged Bob's post into the thread that was started late last year (the full table as at mid-November is at http://bit.ly/YfBhnV), since it effectively updates that thread. He didn't miss any of the top 12 countries - the only missing ones (unless any more countries have managed to get a 35th ranked player in the last 4 months) are Austria, India, Romania, Korea and China.
Quite a drop for France in the last 4 months (226 to 270, though still top on this measure), USA (284 to 351 and now 3rd behind Spain), Argentina (326 to 382 and now 5th behind Germany) - 8th placed Brazil (624 to 566) is the only country in the top 10 with a significant rise in the ranking of their 25th best player, though the same will be true of us on Monday.
Thanks Steven. I was beginning to wonder where my post had gone. Haven't seen this thread before but it is obviously the logical place for my post.

Apologies - because this thread is in a different section of the forum, I meant to pm you as well but got sidetracked.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Top 25 Threshold

paulisi · Tennis legend

RE: ATP & WTA rankings of the 25th best Brits over time

indiana · Tennis legend

Maybe Boggo is destined not to get back up inside the top 200, seemingly increasingly handicapped by various injury issues.

But I totally disagee that abilitywse he "has found his level around 300". His " true" level is well inside the top 200, indeed closer to WR 100 than 200. He showed this over quite a number of years with his challenger exploits and at one stage getting close to the top 100. Maybe he won't get anywhere near that again, but he is not in essense anything like a WR 300 player with a fair wind and at his best is our most capable player after Andy.

Re James and Jamie, I think James could yet make significant moves to at least WR 150, though I wouldn't put money on it. Jamie I am more doubtful about.

korriban · Challenger level

I agree with Paulisi that we may see a further improvement in the top 25 "cut off", and wouldn't be surprised if it went below 650 at some point in 2013. I certainly hope so.

In my opinion, the increasingly professional training and coaching regimes provided by the LTA, the various types of high performance centre, and satellite overseas academies like Soto are making a major contribution to this improved performance. Even players outside those set ups must benefit in that they see or hear what it takes to succeed. Yes I just praised the LTA!

The fact that this probably won't give us more players in the top 200 is more down to a wider set of issues that the LTA is targetted to address, but has not to date been as successful in addressing as some of those other countries on Bob's list.

* Firstly attracting huge numbers of kids from all walks of life into the game as viewers, fans, recreational players and elite players.

* Secondly, giving those kids the ways and means to learn the game and play the game regularly irrespective of their family circumstances, how they live or where they live [within reason!].

* Thirdly developing a talent identification programme that can cope with much more volume, and which is entirely objective: not influenced by tennis clubs, sponsors, friends, wealth, class, etc.

* Fourthly, and this is the big one, making tennis a genuine choice for the future mega-sportsmen and women across GB, those future stars who are pre-destined to become professional athletes, but who currently choose other more accessible sports like football, rugby, athletics, etc. Andy is a perfect example - I'm sure he could have been an exceptional professional footballer, rugby player - and if his Mum hadn't been a tennis coach, I suspect strongly that's what he would be today. I believe that most of the world top 50 (as opposed to players ranked 500 and below) are these multi-sport "mega athletes"......and would be outstanding (not just very good) at whatever ball sport they chose.....the trick is to expose these future stars to tennis as kids and get them hooked......and statistically rather few of them probably live in large houses in Hertfordshire, Surrey, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire......if you know what I mean.

So in my opinion, without making progress on these 4 things, the chance of these superstar all round athletes happening to choose tennis in decent numbers (as they do in France and Spain) is rather low - I suspect our top 25 is littered with good solid sportsmen, who can improve under expert guidance, but has very few naturally outstanding athletes......

As a little test.....if I were to ask how many of the top 25 British players came from "tennis families", where a relative (Mum, Dad, brother, uncle) was a tennis coach.....I suspect the answer will be scarily high.......too high. This is an indication of the problem. The kids of tennis coaches 99.9% more likely to be Jamie Murrays (very very good professional, decent sportsman) rather than Andy Murrays (superstar, outstanding sportsman)

- Anyone know about the players and their backgrounds?

- Obviously Murray, Cox and Golding are all tennis family kids, but I genuinely don't know the rest.

steven · Tennis legend

It definitely looks now as if all of the top 25 Brits will be in the top 700 next Monday for the first time since late 2005, when it didn't last for long.

At the higher end of the scale though, with James at WR 261, we now have the lowest-ranked GB no. 2 since the ATP rankings began.

The only other time GB had just one player in the top 250 was 16 June 2008, when Jamie Baker was GB no. 2 at WR 260.

Having said that, even at the top end of the scale, things were far worse in the late 1980s/early 1990s, when at times there were no Brits in the top 100 and only 2 or 3 in the top 250 (in fact, had Neil Broad not switched from South Africa to GB in the 2nd half of 1988, there would have been only one Brit in the top 250 at some points in 1989), at a time when there was far less depth internationally, i.e. a lot less countries were producing (lots of) good players.