Interesting database quirk - Klein is still shown as AUS on the new ranking list but appears on the GB list (still as AUS) if you filter it by country.

One of the mods on MTF witnessed Klein call Nick Kyrgios a gorilla earlier this year - http://www.menstennisforums.com/showpost.php?p=13791017&postcount=40

Since I start a pretty high percentage of tournament threads on this site and report a lot of results I will make my position clear.

I do not consider Klein to be British and from what I see he has no affinity with Britain or any business representing our country. Furthermore I have long held a principled opposition to those in many sports who change their nationality for cynical and convenient reasons. I will therefore not post anything on this forum relating to his matches. I fully respect the rights of other forum users to take a different view and to treat him just the same as any other player with the letters GBR after their name.

R5L discussing Klein now during the Laura Robson match.

Generally they said sport is a business these days, and expect players to make business decisions for their best potential outcomes, using whatever resource they have at their disposal, much as in industry.

I'm mostly with RJA on this one.

-- Edited by blob on Monday 13th of May 2013 02:14:16 PM

That's fine, RJA - everyone is free to post (or not post) about whichever players they like. My take follows (feel free to sleep through it )

Inclusion in GB stats

A lot of us have misgivings about this particular player for one or both of the obvious reasons, i.e. the possibly cynical switch and his past behaviour. As to whether a player gets included in my GB stats or not (and by extension, whether there are tournament threads for them here), I'm inclined to go with whether the ATP and ITF class a player as GBR or not, because anything else opens up a minefield of subjective judgements.

For example, if I started to exclude switchers, I'd have to exclude JoKo, Cameron and (in the past) Greg. If I started excluding players with GBR next to their names who were not supported by the LTA, many of our faves would have to go. If I started excluding players who weren't born in the UK, that would just be silly, not to mention potentially racist in itself. And if I started excluding players whose behaviour is rumoured to be suspect ... well, let's not go there.

Behaviour

As far as his past behaviour is concerned, my view is similar to the one Coup Droit expressed above. I don't know much more about him than what he was banned for in 2009 (totally unacceptable but at an age when many people's attitudes can still be overly influenced by older relatives and/or peers and can change as they grow up and also an age at which many people say very stupid things they later regret) and snippets of rumour/hearsay since.

If I had to guess, I'd say it seems extremely unlikely that he's the kind of player I'd feel like supporting, but I'd rather wait for the chance to judge for myself and in the meantime, give him the benefit of the doubt.

Switching

It would be interesting to know whether those who think we should completely ignore him for the switching reason alone would have ignored Greg when he arrived too (or would even still ignore him?) - obviously there were reasons of convenience for Greg's switch, yet having switched, he has clearly been fully committed to the GB cause ever since, both in terms of his Davis Cup service and the way he is helping young players now.

Similar to Greg and Brydan (just in the sense of switching partly for convenience but having one British parent, which is a pretty strong connection if you ask me) is Cameron, though in accepting him quickly (or is that just me?) perhaps we are taking the lead from the other young Brits here, at least two of whom seem to have given him a big welcome and to be pleased to have him 'on the team.' JoKo is a very special case, because as far as I can remember, she has no close British ancestry at all, but her long, patient wait for citizenship, her long residence here and the fact that she also seems to have been embraced by most of the other Brits contribute to most of us being very happy to support her as a Brit.

Affinity

I would take issue with RJA's "no affiinity with Britain" comment. I don't know whether Brydan has a strong affinity with the UK, obviously (*), but he might well have. My girlfriend is German and if we ever had children, then whether they were brought up in the UK, Germany or elsewhere, they would be brought up to be bilingual (not a GB/AUS issue, obviously - well, not much LOL) and to have a very strong affinity with both the UK and Germany ... as well as, I hasten to add, a very open, tolerant and interested attitude towards people from everywhere else.

(*) If he doesn't and things don't go well, we might even see him do a Nick Lindahl and switch back before too long - Lindahl was also having issues with TA and switched to representing Sweden in 2010 only to switch back to AUS a few months later. His Wikipedia entry is equally indecisive, saying "Born: Malmö, Sweden" and then "Although he was born in Australia he has Swedish father and Indonesian mother."

Indeed, quite a few of my friends have married people from other countries. Those of them who have kids include GB/Latvian, GB/Italian, GB/Belgian, French/Senegalese & Swiss/Albanian couples, and as far as I can tell, they have all managed to ensure that the children feel attached to both countries. The parent who isn't living in their native country is usually particularly keen to ensure that the children are fully aware of their dual heritage.

Almost done ...

In the end, I can understand RJA's concern about nationalities of convenience. In my opinion, nationality isn't (or shouldn't be) that big a deal in today's world, but in sporting terms, it does provide a convenient way of narrowing down a cohort of players to support, especially when those players are potential members of your favourite team (in this case, the GB DC and Fed Cup teams) and in generating some friendly rivalry and banter with those from other countries - it's only good if it's friendly (in that context, I really liked Bob's story about the Serb and the handshake at the Robson v Ivanovic match!  ) and I'm sure most of us have our non-GB favs as well as supporting the Brits in general and our favs in particular.

Anyway, ramble/rant over, it strikes me that Klein has every right to represent GB if he wants to (and to use the switch to turn over a new leaf, as it were - whether he intends to or not remains to be seen) and we have every right to reserve judgement as to whether to support him or not. In the meantime, though, I intend to include him in stats, etc, partly to avoid opening a can of worms re subjective judgements in future and partly, well, just in case ...

steven wrote:

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OEM's article on this ( http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/sport/tennis/article3763066.ece?CMP=OTH-gnws-standard-2013_05_12 if you have access) contains the somewhat curious:

"The LTA had recently been made aware that Klein, 23, was considering a switch of nationality, which has to be endorsed by the ITF before it can become permanent."

"Quite what reaction there will be if the move goes through remains to be seen, but the Klein family are clearly hopeful that a change of scenery will aid the players form and restore his appetite for the game."

The reason this seems odd is that unlike Ede,  Klein first showed up as GBR on the ITF site.

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The bits you highlighted, Steven, are precisely the one that caused me to raise an eyebrow when I caught sight of the article in my print edition of the paper this morning.  I'm a bit surprised, though, that you didn't go on to mention his father's assessment of him:

Verne (  ) insisted that his son is a "well-adjusted kid" who had been punished by media overreaction.  "He doesn't go out and get drunk, he's not a wild party animal; off the court, he is quite placid and demure"....

I'm not sure i could support anyone with the name 'Brydan'