skibbarriz wrote:

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Cool cool cool. Am looking forward to following his progress. He's an exciting prospect, one of our few talents. And in case Dan asks, he's a Brit!

-- Edited by skibbarriz on Monday 22nd of May 2017 01:54:58 PM

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 He is a Brit, no worries from my perspective. But in terms of his history, wasn't he born in Jo'burg (according to ATP profile) and I recall some time spent in New Zealand. Either way, no matter, and lets hope he makes waves and does well on the ProTour. If he plays Ilkley, I will def try and get along to that. 

JonH wrote:

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skibbarriz wrote:

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Cool cool cool. Am looking forward to following his progress. He's an exciting prospect, one of our few talents. And in case Dan asks, he's a Brit!

-- Edited by skibbarriz on Monday 22nd of May 2017 01:54:58 PM

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 He is a Brit, no worries from my perspective. But in terms of his history, wasn't he born in Jo'burg (according to ATP profile) ...

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I was going to say no, that's Kyle but you're right, the ATP & ITF sites say Cam was born in Jo'burg too!

So of the GB top 6 men & women, only 4 were born in the UK (Andy, Naomi, Dan & Katie B), 3 were born in Australia (JoKo, Laura & Brydan), 2 were born in South Africa (Kyle & Cam), 1 was born in Hong Kong (Tara), 1 was born in Slovenia (Aljaz) and 1 was born in Guernsey (Heather), which isn't part of the UK, though it is British. Nice and cosmopolitan, the version of GB I like best

Much as this seems to have passed the current UK PM by (I'm thinking of her shocking "if you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere" comment last year), nationality is getting more and more fluid. The majority (in the true sense, i.e. more than half , not virtually all) of my friends from uni. have married people who don't come from the same country as they do and many of them are, like me, now living in a third country that isn't the home country of either spouse, so any children of such marriages could easily feel most attached to the country of either parent or the one where they were born/grew up.

From a sporting point of view, it's fun to have a country to cheer for (for me, from virtually any other point of view, nationality is, or should be, virtually irrelevant) and for that to make sense, the country chosen shouldn't be completely random, but I think people should be able to choose to play for the country of their birth, either parent or one they have built up very significant ties with.

I did however agree with the ITF re. Davis/Fed Cup that once you have picked a country as an adult, you should stick with it (unless the initial country makes it impossible, e.g. through persecution) but I still disagree with them over Aljaz, i.e. that if they were going to introduce a rule to that effect, they should have disregarded earlier play for different countries before the rule was changed.

A major problem could be the high expectations that people put on him - next Andy etc. - let him go at his own pace

Another article on Cameron from BT Sport

http://sport.bt.com/tennis/rising-star-cameron-norrie-ready-to-take-professional-tennis-by-storm-S11364188596519

Cam has stepped into the challenger tour with great effect after three years as an elite college player which in itself has been very exciting to follow and understand. He is the first high ranking British male junior to deliberately follow that route when being well positioned to follow the more well trodden futures route for those with realistic aspirations of making the main tour.

Although born later in the year, dare I say it? He is the same birth cohort as Kyle being 1995 born but turning 22 over 8 months later. Kyle has progressed in a very steady and consistent rate on the professional circuit, Cam similarly so on the college circuit particularly over his freshman and sophomore years. Cam established himself as a top 20 college player as a freshman and then in the elite clutch of 2-3 players at the very pinnacle of college tennis as a sophomore; a group capable of direct transition to challenger tennis. This year as a junior he has really dominated the number 1 slot across all college tennis in the US In itself an impressive achievement but not necessarily a passport to ATP success.

It is interesting to look at how Kyle progressed in the professional game and where Cam now sits in those cycles of development having come in from a completly different angle, really only dipping his toe into futures and later challengers as and when college commitments allowed. I don't know how demanding TCU were but from an observers perspective they appear to have worked synergistically to facilitate the development of Cam into a touring pro.

We saw Kyle at the simplist level going through a couple of development cycles prior to his third unseeded but on the ATP fulltime. In 2013 starting in the summer, about now, in Italy, he began to emerge from his first (futures) cycle as a fulltime professional which he started as a 17 year old while still playing junior slams, he then stuttered a little in consecutive Polish futures (where he lost to the same player back to back SF and QF) before trying some clay Eastern European challengers. Kyle then spent some of the off season in Miami with Andy. He then dominated the futures fields in Florida with two tittles in Jan and then another in Croatia before stepping up fulltime to challengers.

Kyle then repeated a similar pattern of emerging dominance two years later; in the summer of 2015 running into early 2016. He dominated the challenger field or group of players playing challengers at that time. It is probably here that Cam sits presently at the beginning of emerging from the challenger cycle. The relative ebb and flow of points in part reflects where the individual sits in that cycle and by historical comparison Cam would be in full flow as he begins to dominate this cohort of challenger players, it will ebb with the transition to GS qualifying and ATP 250's which is fine. What is great to see is a British player leap the whole futures cycle and the relative financial hardship that accompanies it, although my feeling is Kyle with whom the comparison has been made was well supported by British tennis. Obviously every player is different, has different motivations and talents, there are many different ways to skin the metaphorical cat that is transition to the ATP tour, if you can catch it!

It would be great to see Jodie Burrage and Emily Appleton who now start a similar journey to Cam after top 10 junior careers have similar success. First as student/ATHLETES perhaps leaving after sophomore or junior year and then on the WTA tour. The lower case merely indicating that there is a chance they will leave their studies early to pursue a professional career. I am even more intrigued by how things turn out for Emily Arb as a STUDENT/ATHLETE.