British events in 2013

RJA · Hall of fame

British events in 2013

Count Zero · Tennis legend

need to cut back to pay for other expenses like Draper £200k bonus!

Steven mentioned it elsewhere about the decline in challengers generally, i wonder % where Britain compared to the average, so how many challengers do we expect this year now? 3? didn't we used to have 7/8?

Fitzy · Intermediate Club Player

lets all compete for 1 or 2 points with all the frogs coming over to dominate and make our 10k's as strong as some challengers. woooooooop wooooop

SMC1809 · All-time great

Fitzy, not your best post. Considering that you compete in French league matches, it might be a good idea to edit this one. You'd like to think that as it's only a 10k, it wouldn't be worthwhile for continental players to make the trip, leaving the points for Brits.

RJA · Hall of fame

SMC1809 wrote:
You'd like to think that as it's only a 10k, it wouldn't be worthwhile for continental players to make the trip, leaving the points for Brits.

I would tend to agree with this but in all honestly I don't think that is such a good thing. Having a load of 10K futures with weak fields might help some of our players pick up more points but while it looks good it is a false impression and does little to help develop our players.

There should be a balance between 10K events which give our youngsters a good chance to get on the ladder and 15K events which provide stiffer competition and potentially great points and prize money for players looking to make the transition to challengers. Obviously we should also be holding a decent number of challnegers as well.

korriban · Challenger level

Some really interesting points here, and disappointing that it looks like we will be down 1 Challenger in 2013. I don't get the logic, assuming the cash is there.

I thought I'd compare ourselves with some of the more successful European nations, some of those with Federations with lots of cash to spend, some less so. I am also assuming that if you are serious about helping your own professionals transition away from $10K futures to ATP, it helps them to have more home tournaments in the ($15k), Challenger and 250 bracket to provide more opportunities for them to gain experience at this slightly higher level without the travel costs and risks of doing this overseas. After all, we are blessed to have Wimbledon each year, but it is painful for players, fans and the LTA alike to see wildcards offered to GB players with minimal Challenger/250 experience only to have them fail in large numbers. Nobody benefits. So do our European cousins have a different approach? Yes they do!

Excluding Grand Slams the number of home tournaments offered at Challenger and higher (ATP 250, 500, 100) in 2012 was as follows:

France 13 (incl Monte Carlo Masters) incl 7 CHs, 6 ATP. France also has mostly $15k futures, and offers hospitality more often than not.
Spain 8, incl 5 CHs, 3 ATP
Germany 12, incl 7 CHs, 5 ATP
Italy 17 incl 16 CHs, 1 ATP
GB 6 incl 4 CHs, 2 ATP. 1 of the CHs looks like its going, and 4 of the 5 remaining are on grass over 5/6 weeks. No clay CHs, 1 hardcourt CH!!! Its Basically saying that Wimbledon plus a few weeks pre- and post- is all that matters.
Sweden 2 incl 0 CHs (interesting this - they now have NO players in the top 250, despite a rich history of success, Could this be a factor?)

There is no particular pattern on futures, except that the hotter the country, the more tournaments offered (no surprise).

So its perfectly possible for French, German, Italian and Spanish players to get that next step up in competition at home, where costs/risks are low, and where wildcards and home advantage can prove very handy. I know there could well be an issue of causality here (does success create demand for higher level tournaments or do higher level home tournaments help breed successful players). But taking out $15ks and Challengers in favour of a few more $10ks would surely make it even harder for our better players to transition, not easier!!

Any thoughts?

-- Edited by korriban on Wednesday 9th of January 2013 05:18:29 PM

kundalini · Specialist Reporter + Intermediate Club Player

If you take a look at Steven's top 25 table, it is clear that we have so few players who might make it into the top 200, that right now, we don't need that many events. If things were different and there were more promising brits than wildcard opportunities, then I think you could make a case for more events. Having 15Ks rather than 10Ks would boost the rankings of a few brits that are unlikely to ever get inside the top 200 and help the likes of Josh Goodall boost his ranking miles above the current standard of his tennis.

Using the ATP's rankings, you can see that the various countries that you listed have very different strengths and weaknesses in the top 100, 101-200, 201-350, 351-500. Right now Spain has almost as many players inside the top 100 as between 101-500.

While I have some sympathy for british players who are clearly very good at tennis yet gain only minimal financial reward for their efforts, the simple fact remains that with one or two exceptions (one of the french challengers in the autumn had an impressive crowd) the public is only really interested in ATP/WTA/Slams; that's the reality of the marketplace. Sport isn't fair. Some sports provide employment opportunities for lots of people, other sports barely generate any financial rewards for anyone.

-- Edited by kundalini on Wednesday 9th of January 2013 11:02:14 PM

RJA · Hall of fame

kundalini wrote:
If you take a look at Steven's top 25 table, it is clear that we have so few players who might make it into the top 200, that right now, we don't need that many events. If things were different and there were more promising brits than wildcard opportunities, then I think you could make a case for more events. Having 15Ks rather than 10Ks would boost the rankings of a few brits that are unlikely to ever get inside the top 200 and help the likes of Josh Goodall boost his ranking miles above the current standard of his tennis.

I think that you missed a crucial point. Last year there were 5 early season hard court 15K events, this year there are 8 early season hard court 10K events. Someone like Josh Goodall had the possibility of winning 135 points in those events last year where as this year he could win 144 points. Obviously that would entail playing more matches but the fields will be weaker.

korriban · Challenger level

Count Zero. From the ITF site

GB Challengers

2005: 7; 2006: 8; 2007: 7

2008: 3; 2009: 3; 2010: 3; 2011: 4; 2012: 4

Assuming next year will be 3.

I think Roger Draper arrived sometime towards the end of 2006, so I assume 2007 would have been set in stone already. It would therefore appear that a policy decision was made by the new team to dramatically cut Challengers by 4 in a year.

I can't imagine it was a financial decision (this is the LTA!), so I imagine there was a deeper logic in terms of player and "product" development. I wonder if they felt there was a risk our players were being "spoilt" by the 7 or 8 home Challengers, which they may have felt was a barrier to them commiting fully to ATP level goals and seeking tougher competition overseas. If you could make a decent living back then with a mix of GB Futures and Challengers alone, then that would indeed be a problem, but I suspect one could not.

I realise you are friendly with Boggo, so if he did play all 7 home Challengers in 2005, was there something about his behaviour outside this that they wanted to stop - did his GB Challenger success discourage him from travelling overseas for Challengers and ATP level tournaments too? I suspect not, but perhaps there WAS an issue they wanted to address.

Its all about balance - we need enough Challengers to offer our (hopefully increasingly large volume of) up and coming players the chance to test themselves at home at a higher level on surfaces other than just grass and outside June/July - 3 (of which 2 are grass/summer) is clearly too few. I don't know what the right number is, but its got to be more than 3, especially as we have NO ATP tournaments at all outside the Summer.

Anyway - it seems to me that this is one potential barrier to success for player development which could be easily fixed - albeit the LTA obviously believe through their actions these Challengers are part of the problem.

Addendum: And as I said previously, Sweden (home of Borg, Wilander, Edberg, etc) has just 7 Future $10ks, no $15ks and no Challengers - yes it forces developing players to go overseas to compete at a higher level, but with not a single player inside the top 350, and with the transition process getting harder every year, something doesn't sound right with a balance like this. I know there are many factors at play - but it can't be helping

-- Edited by korriban on Thursday 10th of January 2013 01:34:26 PM

Count Zero · Tennis legend

It's hard to recall exactly back to 2005 but Alex did generally have a very good record in home challengers, however he was also played abroad pretty often as well and would often attmept to play at the bigger challengers on occasion, i dont belvie he has ever shied away from taking on tougher tournamnets.

I do recall Henman making comments along the lines of it being too easy for GB players and players needed to toughen up by playing outside of their comfort zone, i think recalling some satellite he played in Thailand or something. so perhaps that was part of the thinking behind the move. I wouldn't entirely discount the cost aspect tho, is the cost for hosting an event purely on the LTA or also the clubs themselves?

-- Edited by Count Zero on Thursday 10th of January 2013 01:35:36 PM

steven · Tennis legend

Fitzy has managed to get a piece on the Sporting Life site today:

http://bit.ly/RHMkYy

korriban · Challenger level

I'm not sure I have any particular point to make about $10ks vs $15ks, as there doesn't seem to be an obvious pattern or approach used by the more successful countries. Australia focuses on $15ks only, with selected gaps in between tournaments, which makes it hard for non-Australians to justify the long trip for just 2 weeks. Arguably this protects Aussies from big competition, and inflates the rankings of rising players. Good? Bad? Don't know. Germany and Spain do it the other way round.

What I would say is that if we are removing BOTH $15ks (which DO attract slightly better quality players) AND Challengers (which definitely do), then the opportunities we make available for home grown players to test themselves at the next level up at home (i.e. lower cost and risk) are increasingly limited. To get $15k or Challenger experience (and even ATP experience) you realistically need to go abroad.......

Furthermore, the higher level tournament opportunities that DO exist here at this next level are being increasingly focussed on just grass over just a 6 week period (Wimbledon, 2 ATPs, 2 Challengers out of 3). So for the other 46 weeks out of 52 on the tour when no grass tournaments are played, you absolutely have to go abroad. By the way, the same applies to fans/spectactors - outside of a 6 week period and except for grass - forget it. I assume that 95% or more of the courts available in the UK are NOT grass, and that amateurs and professionals are allowed to play tennis outside June and July........

This isn't about a 180 degree change. No requests for 16 CHs, like Italy. Putting $10ks/$15ks aside, I'm simply arguing for 1 or 2 more GB Challengers (5 or 6 max), deliberately positioned away from June/July, on any surface except grass. And perhaps in time pitching for an additional ATP level event (non-grass) away from June/July (albeit is there a venue that could handle it!!!). This is a much more balanced approach for the transitioning players, provides more of a year round product for the fans, and breaks the cycle of retrenchment outside Wimbledon. And if those Challengers lose money, I'd argue that by reducing the LTA cost of funding travel for players, coaches and support staff for an additional 3 weeks per year, the numbers might look a lot more sensible.

Am I barking up the wrong tree, or just barking?!

Count Zero · Tennis legend

Korriban I'm not sure how long ago you started following tennis, but not too long ago we had many more challengers.

a quick look back at Alex's results in 05 showed he played 7 home challengers that year (i presume he competed at all the home challengers) they were:
Wrexham, Nottingham (H), Surbiton, Nottingham (G), Manchester, Southampton & Sunderland.

if only the LTA would go back to hosting so as many! i am sure our players would benefit.

plus i dont necessarily see a player having a slightly overinflated ranking as a result of home events as a big problem, players from other countries will have the same situation and in the long run it will even out. very few players will get a overinflated rank into the top 100 or if they do somehow manage it stay there. And it's not just home events that contribute to this, it's also occurs with some players choosing to play events at slightly such less appealing locations (Kazakhstan challengers anyone)

RJA · Hall of fame

Count Zero wrote:
plus i dont necessarily see a player having a slightly overinflated ranking as a result of home events as a big problem, players from other countries will have the same situation and in the long run it will even out. very few players will get a overinflated rank into the top 100 or if they do somehow manage it stay there. And it's not just home events that contribute to this, it's also occurs with some players choosing to play events at slightly such less appealing locations (Kazakhstan challengers anyone)

The problem I have is players hetting an over inflated ranking by playing lots of home futures with weak draws. That inflates their ranking but doesn't help them to prepare for playing at a higher level.

Drew · Jan 10, 2013

How do we compare to Spain in terms of challengers?