British events in 2013

RJA · Hall of fame

RE: British events in 2013

Tennis36 · Masters Series Champion

didnt check any results, but i noticed on the lta site last week that evo was playing some event last week

RJA · Hall of fame

Tennis36 wrote:
didnt check any results, but i noticed on the lta site last week that evo was playing some event last week

It was some extremely unimportant doubles event.

Tennis36 · Masters Series Champion

oh glad to see he has his priorities sorted in that case haha

RJA · Hall of fame

RJA wrote:
The LTA still haven't put out the calender for the second half of the year but the ITF site does now list futures events for July.

As normal we have the three grass court 10K futures at Manchester / Ilkely / Felixstowe* starting w/c 1st July followed by a blank week where the Irish host there one and only 15K futures in Dublin. Then joy of joys w/c 29th July we have a 15K hard court futures event at Nottingham and presumably another one somewhere else the following week.

The LTA still haven't released the calender for the the second half of the year but the ITF now list all August events as well. Confirmed that the week after the Nottingham futures there is another 15K, at the very agreeable venue in Chiswick. Then at the end of August there is a 10K at Wrexham which should be followed by at least two more 10Ks, probably Roehampton and Cumberland.

So just to make this clearer, forthcoming futures events.

Week 26 - Manchester (Grass) 10K

Week 27 - Ilkley (Grass) 10K

Week 28 - Felixstowe (Grass) 10K

Week 30 - Nottingham (Hard) 15K

Week 31 - Chiswick (Hard) 15K

Week 34 - Wrexham (Hard) 10K

-- Edited by RJA on Saturday 11th of May 2013 12:50:09 PM

RJA · Hall of fame

The LTA have finally updated the calender for the rest of 2013 and sadly it is confirmed that there will be no challengers other than Nottingham, In addition to the events listed in the previous post we have

Week 35 - Sheffield (Hard) 10K

Week 36 - Roehampton (Hard)

Week 40 - Cardiff (Indoor Hard) 10K

Week 41 - Loughborough (Indoor Hard) 10K

Week 42 - Tipton (Indoor Hard) 10K

Week 43 - Edgbaston (Indoor Hard) 10K

RJA · Hall of fame

So overall that means we will have two challengers, two 15K futures and twenty one 10K futures.

Last year for comparison we had four challengers, nine 15K futures and nine 10K futures.

steven · Tennis legend

I agree that RJA makes a very good point. By far the biggest reason for the surge in the number of players in the top 750 is that there are so many 10K Futures in the UK and that so many of the points from them are 'staying at home,' as it were. If we suddenly had some up-and-coming French players, for example, deciding it was a good idea to come over and hoover up some points and they started taking SF and Final places, the trend towards more Brits in the top 750 could reverse very quickly.

Having said that, I don't think the greater GB depth at this level is just an illusion - between them this year, the Brits have managed to limit the impact of good young prospects like Christian Harrison and Borna Coric playing in GB Futures in a way that they never managed with players like Stéphane Robert in previous years and quite a few of them have been doing well when they venture overseas for Futures too.

Of course, if we had more Challengers (or even more 15Ks), that would attract more strong players from elsewhere and far more of the points would go overseas, though the Brits for whom it is tougher to play overseas for funding reasons would at least get more experience playing stronger and less familiar opponents.

If the LTA think the best we can hope for at the moment is to increase the number of players in the 300-750 range, then they are probably doing the right thing to achieve this. This might even be acceptable if it is part of a medium-term plan to start introducing higher level tournaments once there are lots of Brits ready to try to make the transition or if they are intending to find ways to encourage such players to step up by playing overseas, otherwise it is a plan that is going nowhere.

I had a very brief Twitter chat about this with Dan at Soto yesterday. He made the point that it probably isn't any more expensive to play a Challenger in Düsseldorf than to play a Challenger in Wrexham, given that plane fares to Europe compare favourably with rail fares in the UK (a scandal in itself, but that's another issue entirely), plus accommodation costs more in the UK and if you get into a +H Challenger main draw, accommodation costs are covered anyway ... and that a multi-week trip to Asian Challengers probably isn't that expensive per week compared to alternatives in the UK/Europe when you factor in much lower living costs over there.

He has a point, probably, though on reflection I might argue why put a UK Challenger in Wrexham (even more mindlessly, they put 2 UK Challengers in Jersey a few years ago) instead of putting it somewhere more central that more Brits could get to cheaply ... and also that with GB rankings as there are at the moment, the odd main draw WC into a bog-standard UK Challenger would help those looking to make the transition.

Whatever the LTA's medium-term plan re. men's tournament, it still seems shocking that we won't have a single 'standard' (in the sense of not being an articifucally strong Wimbledon warm-up event) Challenger in the UK this year.

-- Edited by steven on Thursday 16th of May 2013 12:42:39 PM

Count Zero · Tennis legend

that's just embarrassing.

steven · Tennis legend

RJA wrote:
So overall that means we will have two challengers, two 15K futures and twenty one 10K futures.

Last year for comparison we had four challengers, nine 15K futures and nine 10K futures.

... not to mention the fact that the two Challengers are virtually ATP 250 standard but with only Challenger-level points

korriban · Challenger level

steven wrote:
RJA wrote:
So overall that means we will have two challengers, two 15K futures and twenty one 10K futures.

Last year for comparison we had four challengers, nine 15K futures and nine 10K futures.
... not to mention the fact that the two Challengers are virtually ATP 250 standard but with only Challenger-level points

... not to mention the fact that if we go a few years back, GB ran 7 or 8 Challengers per year. The 2 remaining Challengers are not even big point tournaments, and they run in consecutive weeks mid-grass court season ahead of Wimbledon. This relies on big name players who NEED to be here anyway for practice (irrespective of points and money on offer), guaranteeing good crowds and big profits. We could have run 1 CH after Wimbledon, which would have favoured the Brits, but no. Tennis is supposed to be a 10 month a year, multi-surface sport: it is elsewhere; it isn't in Britain ($10ks and the WTF don't count in my book in terms of a profile which "helps" give our boys more ammo to turn 350 ranked players into 150 ranked players)

RJA · Hall of fame

The current calender really is the worst of both worlds. Lots of 10K events, some with weak fields, allow pretty average players to get a better ranking than they really deserve while the lack of challengers makes it hard for other players to step up to the next level.

Jaggy1876 · Grand Slam Champion

I think RJA hits the nail on the head and it may be one reason why we have the rankings of the top 25 rising which looks good but 0 players top 200 bar Andy. The reality is that only maybe 4 or 5 of the top 25 could win games at challenger level but they should at least be given the chance.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

and of course Notts 2 and Queens clash as well as Wimby Q & Eastbourne.

indiana · Tennis legend

Ah, but wait until we get really well placed in the number of players ranked between 300 and 600. Although I guess with the Dodger going, we might escape a press release about this indicating a new era in British tennis !

( having said that, like Steven, I don't think this seemingly greater depth is just an illusion, but I certainly think all the home 10K points available has exagerrated it ).

Who knows what the stategy is, but there does seem evidence, as surmised on here before, about it being related to not putting on tournaments where these foreign chappees will take away most or almost all the points.

Whatever, I do think the Challenger situation is ridiculous, short term, long term or in any terms !