British events in 2013

freerider · Futures level

RE: British events in 2013

Bob · Social player

Non profit organisation deciding to spend over £700,000 (when you include NI) on just one man who appears to do diddly squat for our sport and has no respect from players or tennis enthusiasts, at the expense of some decent tennis events on home turf for our growing crop of potential players!!! It is selfish and smacks of people looking after their own at the expense of tennis progression in the UK. LTA -YOU MUST STOP THIS MADNESS

chicken · Social player

Bob wrote:
Non profit organisation deciding to spend over £700,000 (when you include NI) on just one man who appears to do diddly squat for our sport and has no respect from players or tennis enthusiasts, at the expense of some decent tennis events on home turf for our growing crop of potential players!!! It is selfish and smacks of people looking after their own at the expense of tennis progression in the UK. LTA -YOU MUST STOP THIS MADNESS

Totally agree - I have two kids playing tennis both are good and play internationally they receive no money or help and now less tournaments!!

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

chicken wrote:
Bob wrote:
Non profit organisation deciding to spend over £700,000 (when you include NI) on just one man who appears to do diddly squat for our sport and has no respect from players or tennis enthusiasts, at the expense of some decent tennis events on home turf for our growing crop of potential players!!! It is selfish and smacks of people looking after their own at the expense of tennis progression in the UK. LTA -YOU MUST STOP THIS MADNESS
Totally agree - I have two kids playing tennis both are good and play internationally they receive no money or help and now less tournaments!!

Welcome smile

Jaggy1876 · Grand Slam Champion

On the other hand maybe the lack of tournaments will encourage those in the top 500 to play more challengers in Europe rather than fighting for 18 points on a futures at home. Points from british challengers can also mislead some to think they are ready as well when in fact Wild cards and Brit heavy draws are giving them free points.

Bob · Social player

Jaggy1876 wrote:
On the other hand maybe the lack of tournaments will encourage those in the top 500 to play more challengers in Europe rather than fighting for 18 points on a futures at home. Points from british challengers can also mislead some to think they are ready as well when in fact Wild cards and Brit heavy draws are giving them free points.

Free points!!!! The tournaments in the UK are as strong, if not stronger than overseas. It is a money problem. If money was not an issue then of course play tournaments abroad. The problem is the LTA help so few players financially and it is the players themselves that have to fund the trips abroad. Imagine the expense. Most cannot afford it and to test their skills on home turf at better tournaments that attract higher ranked players, indirectly helps financially as they can use the money saved for other ways to help improve their tennis. As for free points, I think every player who has got ranking points would disagree with you.

RJA · Hall of fame

Jaggy1876 wrote:
On the other hand maybe the lack of tournaments will encourage those in the top 500 to play more challengers in Europe rather than fighting for 18 points on a futures at home. Points from british challengers can also mislead some to think they are ready as well when in fact Wild cards and Brit heavy draws are giving them free points.

This would be a fair point if we were talking about going from say 10 challengers down to 8 but we aren't. Only two challengers (both on grass) for a country like Britain is an absolute joke.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

DDoesnt one of the challengers also clash with queens?

RJA · Hall of fame

Count Zero wrote:
DDoesnt one of the challengers also clash with queens?

Yes.

Jaggy1876 · Grand Slam Champion

Yes free points. Wild Cards to main round draw a fellow Brit or two and its a challenger quarter final making us think Joe Brit is at that level when in fact he has beaten a Miles Bugby and a Bloomers (for example). That's what I was meaning. On the other hand the lack of tournaments is a joke as is the funding but it's because of the middle classes at the top in tennis keeping it as an elitist sport. Without knowing the full backgrounds of our up and coming youngsters I'd be amazed if they weren't from well off backgrounds. This needs to change. The Wards Bakers and Goodalls have been definite victims in this respect as the LTA appear to be so far up their own backsides they look down on these guys just as they did with Jamie Murray. Having been at both Oz open and Wimbledon you can see the difference in attitudes. Agassi hated the toff style Wimbledon i remember reading. Aussie tennis players and fans come from all backgrounds. British ones dont. The LTA like it that way. Hence the big pay rises to the chiefs and cuts in funding

huntley93 · Strong Club Player

that 700k bonus that was given out could have been used to set up a few 30k/50k challengers!

huntley93 · Strong Club Player

oh and drapers wage is more than the entire budget of tennis scotland

Bob · Social player

Lets stick to the facts. Who as a GB Wild Card into a GB Challenger in the last few years has beaten Bugby or Bloomers to pick up "free points"? Most of what Jaggy says I agree with but to say our players pick up free points as Wild Cards into our home Challengers is simply not true and disrespectful to our players who bust a gut to win ranking points.

johnnylad · Tennis legend

Jaggy1876 wrote:
Yes free points. Wild Cards to main round draw a fellow Brit or two and its a challenger quarter final making us think Joe Brit is at that level when in fact he has beaten a Miles Bugby and a Bloomers (for example). That's what I was meaning. On the other hand the lack of tournaments is a joke as is the funding but it's because of the middle classes at the top in tennis keeping it as an elitist sport. Without knowing the full backgrounds of our up and coming youngsters I'd be amazed if they weren't from well off backgrounds. This needs to change. The Wards Bakers and Goodalls have been definite victims in this respect as the LTA appear to be so far up their own backsides they look down on these guys just as they did with Jamie Murray. Having been at both Oz open and Wimbledon you can see the difference in attitudes. Agassi hated the toff style Wimbledon i remember reading. Aussie tennis players and fans come from all backgrounds. British ones dont. The LTA like it that way. Hence the big pay rises to the chiefs and cuts in funding

Firstly, actual examples of this really happening in the past few years are negligible. Where it has happened the resulting points won have been more comparable to a futures semi or final than any major inflation of a *terrible* Brit's ranking.

Secondly, there are free points as you call them availble in almost every single futures tournament / lower level challenger all over the world because there are always local or national players being given a chance - it depends on the draw you get - not the number of tournaments in your country.

indiana · Tennis legend

Yes, bit of a myth all these general supposed "free" ranking points to such as GB challenger QFs through meetings partly or fully of Brit WCs. A few examples ?

Actually as has been said British Challengers have usually been quite strong. And since local WCs are common players from all countries with ( often more ) challengers can benefit similarly.

It really is a totally insignificant issue against the ludicrius reductuon to just two GB challengers, both on grass.