I've questioned a few tournament choices of some of the juniors and new pros in the past - for example the clay court tour of the US by a few of the boys/men earlier this year, where every $10k required 4 rounds of qualifiers. I've also wondered why our men seem to play so few Challengers.
So I thought I'd take the top 4 juniors from 2011, names we all probably know, all from different countries - Vesely, Saville, Golding and Thiem and look at what tournaments they have chosen recently. It's very interesting. All of them, of course, play their fair share of $10ks. It was the other, more competitive, high points potential tournaments I was more interested in.
Since the grass court season 2012, when Oli played 3 ATP events (Wimbledon, Eastbourne, Queens) and Nottingham Challenger using up a few WCs the different tournament decisions are quite stark. I've excluded $10ks, and where the players chose not to go for many ATP or Challenger events, I checked if their futures profile contained lots of $15k events.
JWR#1 Vesely ATP 0 CH 4 $15k 10 [total >$10k 14]
JWR#2 Saville ATP 3 CH 5 $15k 10 [total >$10k 18]
JWR#3 Golding ATP 0 CH 1 $15k 0 [total >$10k 1 (incl June 5)]
JWR#4 Thiem ATP 4 CH 7 $15k 3 [total >$10k 14]
I'm sure you know the point I want to make. Thiem and Saville have already chosen to test themselves at ATP and CH level quite extensively, even as 19 year olds. Vesely much less so, but he has clearly actively sought ought $15k Futures to offer both better competition and greater points potential. After the grass court and WC season finished Oli played just 1 CH and no $15ks in 9 months. I sense generally a more conservative approach in GB players choices, even the HiPo ones. I know its a marathon, not a sprint, but should we be more adventurous?
-- Edited by korriban on Monday 8th of April 2013 05:24:19 PM
-- Edited by korriban on Monday 8th of April 2013 05:30:22 PM
-- Edited by korriban on Tuesday 9th of April 2013 07:05:48 AM
Bob. Obviously every young Brit looks to get as many WCs as possible in the GB grass ATP and ATP Challenger events over the Summer, Oli and others included. Who wouldn't? I'm not conveniently forgetting this, and I think I mentioned it quite openly. [Edit: and I've added back the 4 grass court tournaments for Oli without adding any June ATP/CH/$15ks for the others above, and it doesn't make much difference to the thrust of the argument]
It's just that I was more interested in looking at the other 9 months of the year outside GB in June, which is 90% of the tennis year, and the period of time where I'd argue many Brits, and Oli may be one of them, appear to be more conservative than some of their peers.
You are absolutely right about Luke Saville.....it's a similar point to Oli, albeit Luke's "free month" is January instead of June for Oli. And I'm sure that there will be 1 or 2 Czech tournament WCs and Austrian WCs for Jiri and Dominic too in my numbers. But if we take all of these "home" events out of the equation, I think the point remains the same.......
Oli and his GB recent junior friends appear to be playing $10ks, but the "mix" of tournaments for all 3 of the others also contains a lot more $15ks, CHs and ATP events. More of a balance. I'm just surprised that more of our high potential boys/men don't go down this route.
To illustrate this point further, as you point out, Kyle has played lots of $10ks but is now about to do a $100k CH, $50k CH, $50k CH swing in the US (not a blade of grass or a ripe strawberry in sight).......which is exactly what I would have expected more of our HiPo boys/men to be mixing in with their Futures bread and butter. Outside Kyle, I can't think of any recent Brits who are testing themselves in this way.
-- Edited by korriban on Monday 8th of April 2013 04:15:27 PM
-- Edited by korriban on Monday 8th of April 2013 05:35:18 PM
To use a phrase that I have used before, there are "Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics". I understand the point you are trying to make and in many ways agree with you. But there are some "sampling" issues that I would question.
Reading your third paragraph, from a most cynical viewpoint (very unlike me - I know) it might be paraphrased as - "If you ignore all Oli's ATP events, he hasn't played any ATP events". I think the results would look very different if you "sampled" over a 12 month period.
There are also other mitigating factors - most notably the number of ATP/Challenger events in Australia (thinking specifically about Saville) as compared to the UK and also Oli's periods of absence through injury.
Like you however, I would love to see our promising young players testing themselves at a higher level and I know we will both be keen to see how Kyle gets on as he sets off to the USA tomorrow for his "Challenger experience".
Following someone's mentioning that it was "Juniors Week" at various tournaments, thought it would be interesting to look up what some juniors who are moving onto the senior tour have done this week:
In Challengers:
Borna Coric (17) lost a tough Challenger QF to PHH (he had, in fairness, had a WO in the second round)
Nicolas Jarry (18) ranked 1080, won a round in the Lima challenger
Christian Garin (17) ranked 433 lost in the Lima QFs to Hocevar (again, he had benefited from a retirement in the second round)
Gianluigi Quinzi (17) ranked 371 lost in the Guayaquil semis to Leonardo Mayer, but took him to three sets. No retirements for him - just sheer talent.
In Futures
Kozlov, still aged 15, has won his first futures doubles title at the Bradenton 10K (this may be an odd tournament, as there's bound to be a surfeit of younger players given the location ... but still)
Andrey Rublev (16) is playing Noah Rubin (17) in the semifinals of the same tournament ... and as we all know GB's own
Luke Bambridge (18) is playing his first final in Greece
There may be others playing: I don't really follow them except for the GB players and the ones like Quinzi who are so outstanding that you have to notice them. And then, of course, you've got Kyrgios, and Kokkinakis and Mr Edmund ...
Don't think you can generalise from these results anything about what people should do: different people, different styles, different stages of development. Maybe the successes simply show that they're all in the place where they should be right now - all moving on and making the transition at whatever level is right for them. But what seems really clear is that there's a lot of potential for the future.
