Week 18 - Greece F5 ($10,000) - Iraklion (hard)

The Magician Santoro · Top national player

RE: Week 18 - Greece F5 ($10,000) - Iraklion (hard)

RJA · Hall of fame

korriban wrote:
RJA wrote:
Another week and another poor result for James. He should have made at least quarter finals here.
7 ranking points in 11 tournaments. And now presumably he can fly back to Israel with a coach at the LTA's expense, before once again flying back to Greece for week 20. Ed, Lewis and Josh I believe will all be paying for themselves, but receive top-ups against any prize money they earn (though it's probably not as generous as the travel allowance overall).
I absolutely believe in the Team Aegon funding principles for promising young singles players (doubles is another issue), and of course selections will be subjective, but surely there must be some minimum performance standard DURING the course of the season in question to allow the funding to continue [for example over the first 6 months]......otherwise resentment (or confusion) will build amongst the other players.
I do recognise that form can and will dip for every player.....but perhaps some tough love might work better for certain players than unconditional support. A tough one to judge, I know.......
Hope he turns the corner......soonish!!

I am loathed to be too critical of Marsalek because he has always struck me as having a really good attitude, both on court where he fights for every point like his life depends on it, and off court where by all account he works very hard. It was probably his attitude that kept him on Team Aegon this year when results suggested that he wouldn't be.

However this is a results business and I absolutely agree that players do need to be held to certain performance standards if they are to be funded to such a high level. Obviously there needs to be a balance because with young players it is important for them to develop their game rather than just pick up cheap points. It is also very hard for us to properly judge a player by results alone. It is always possible that improvements are happening which are not yet reflected in a player's results.

Either way, hoping for better results, and soon.

RJA · Hall of fame

Burton lost 6-1 in the third.

Awful, awful result.

spud · Challenger qualifying

RJA wrote:
Burton lost 6-1 in the third.

Awful, awful result.

In Burton's defence, yes its a bad result but his opponent Kapogiannis looks to be better than his ranking suggests. In the Greece F3 he only gave Oliver Hudson one game and took Kimmer Coppejeans (who made last weeks final) to a 3rd set tiebreak. He then took 3 more games than a certain Mr Corrie against Gigounon last week so lets not be too critical here.

It really has been a poor 3 weeks in terms of singles for Lewis so far and its unfortunate he seems to be only playing one of the next 3 Greece futures in Athens. Hopefully he can at least make a semifinal there to make up it.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

korriban wrote:
RJA wrote:
Another week and another poor result for James. He should have made at least quarter finals here.
7 ranking points in 11 tournaments. And now presumably he can fly back to Israel with a coach at the LTA's expense, before once again flying back to Greece for week 20. Ed, Lewis and Josh I believe will all be paying for themselves, but receive top-ups against any prize money they earn (though it's probably not as generous as the travel allowance overall).
I absolutely believe in the Team Aegon funding principles for promising young singles players (doubles is another issue), and of course selections will be subjective, but surely there must be some minimum performance standard DURING the course of the season in question to allow the funding to continue [for example over the first 6 months]......otherwise resentment (or confusion) will build amongst the other players.
I do recognise that form can and will dip for every player.....but perhaps some tough love might work better for certain players than unconditional support. A tough one to judge, I know.......
Hope he turns the corner......soonish!!

It's an interesting point.

Would you happen to know if James has had the same LTA coach for the previous 11 tournaments ? And is this the same coach as he had last year when, presumably, in order to be selcted, his results were better ?

After all, the buck stops with the player - it's down to him/her to perform. But if I were the LTA and funding an individual coach I would be asking questions about him/her too, given the recent run of results.

Also, am I right in thinking that James is the only Team Aegon player in Greece this week ? This seems odd. In France, funding is more wide-spread for the under-22 year-olds and they go on tour in groups of three or four so that one coach can work with all them. It makes it cheaper, spreads the benefit and gives a good team spirit.

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Thursday 2nd of May 2013 07:44:56 AM

korriban · Challenger level

Coup Droit. I'm not sure about each player's individual coaching situation, but in the main GB players do tend to play abroad in groups, just like the French players do, for all the same reasons. And I'm pretty certain that in the main where LTA coaches (or equivalent) are involved, sensible decisions to spread coaches across multiple players will be made.

As well as technical/coaching support over the year, young GB players typically receive some kind of financial support too - although this varies depending on whether you are awarded a Team Aegon contract (James, for example) or not. Broadly speaking, Team Aegon players have their travel and accommodation expenses taken care of , whereas the rest don't, but do receive a "top-up" against tournament prize money.

The odd thing about James' recent travels is that his Israel-Greece-Israel-Greece $10k itinerary over 4 weeks is not only costly and disruptive, but he's essentially on his own for the 2 Israel weeks - so unless he is there without a coach (unlikely) this seems almost profligate. Similar situation with Oli recently on his own in Egypt, Croatia and now Italy - I am assuming he has, in effect, a personal 1 on 1 coach with him, which is........rather generous one feels.

On a seperate note, given the different characters amongst our men and women, travelling in groups can have a number of downsides as well as benefits....

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Thank you for that, Korriban.

As you say, blanket rules are probably not a good idea but finance and funding is such a key part of tennis, the national federation and a young tennis player's career choices that, I agree, it does seem fair to question whether two similar players doing two individual long-ish tours (including weird Israel-Greece hopping) is really a good use of funds.

And I do think that the role and effectivenss and results of the individual coach have to be analysed and questioned (there are good and bad everywhere and I'm certainly not pointing the finger at James' coach - he may well be excellent - but I have seen some very bizarre UK coaches on the European tour, especially in the Juniors).

I hadn't realised that the non-Aegon players received a 'top-up'- thank you for that. I've gone and found the LTA's site page that explains it - it seems very clear and open.

RJA · Hall of fame

I will stand corrected here but I am pretty sure that James doesn't have a permanent coach, by which I mean someone who travels to tournaments with him.

korriban · Challenger level

RJA. I'm sure that's right, no permanent travelling coach - but I presume there's a certain amount of "group" coaching on tour - although perhaps not if a player decides to be on their own. Perhaps Oli is on his own in Italy too, although I'd be somewhat surprised.

seagull · Hall of fame

Ed lost the first set 6-2

Josh won the first set 6-2, but is 4-2 down in the second

RJA · Hall of fame

Ed in big trouble *1-4 in the second

RJA · Hall of fame

Josh one set all

Ed lost 6-2, 6-1

korriban · Challenger level

2 rather one-sided losses from Ed in the last 2 tournaments, both to lower ranked players. Last week, he lost to the Belgian who went onto win his second ITF $10k in a row, so fair enough. This week is a big suprise.

Outdoors, 24 or 25 degrees on a hard court - ought to be good conditions for Ed, but he lost 5 service games out of 7, which is very un-Ed-like. Odd as his reliablility was becoming his biggest asset, with almost all his losses very tight affairs. A slight injury perhaps?

RJA · Hall of fame

And just to cap a complete disaster of a tournament from a British perspective Josh also lost, 6-2, 3-6, 1-6

stevemcqueen · Futures qualifying

Hugely disappointing result for Ed after a fantastic start to the year. I hope he can pick things up before the grass season starts. It would be nice to know what Ed thought of the match...

Steve