Week 23 - Challenger (€64,000) - Nottingham, UK (grass)

philwrig · Hall of fame

RE: Week 23 - Challenger (€64,000) - Nottingham, UK (grass)

indiana · Tennis legend

Pity. But another good week for Evo.

I have detected a general assumption that Evo is going to get a Wimbledon MD WC even if he is outside the top 250, essentially because of his Davis Cup exploits. Hopefully, for him, that does prove to be the case.

Jaggy1876 · Grand Slam Champion

I think he will get a Wild Card although from what I've heard a lot of other players don't seem to be a fan of his so can imagine some of the other Brits not being pleased. The lack of players bar Ward in the top 275 mean they will probably stretch it to suit him. I think Jamie Baker is more deserving to be honest.

jake270392 · Intermediate Club Player

Jaggy1876 wrote:
I think he will get a Wild Card although from what I've heard a lot of other players don't seem to be a fan of his so can imagine some of the other Brits not being pleased. The lack of players bar Ward in the top 275 mean they will probably stretch it to suit him. I think Jamie Baker is more deserving to be honest.

To be honest, only Dan can blame himself for the way he behaves and the way he has taken tennis seriously over the years. I cant see how Jamie can be more deserving solely on the basis that he may train harder (You could say Goodall is more deserving on this basis). Dan is probably the most talented of all Brits (apart from Andy) and I am hoping he can put in a good performance next week!!

alex03maccy · Grand Slam Champion

Jaggy1876 wrote:
I think he will get a Wild Card although from what I've heard a lot of other players don't seem to be a fan of his so can imagine some of the other Brits not being pleased. The lack of players bar Ward in the top 275 mean they will probably stretch it to suit him. I think Jamie Baker is more deserving to be honest.

More deserving maybe but the Evo has a far bigger chance of winning a match, Jamie just doesn't have the weapons to beat the majority of players in the top 100.

PaulM · Tennis legend

They can't relax the top 250 rule for him but not for anyone else. But they will I'm sure. I mean if they do what is the justification for not giving one to say, Lisa, who is just outside the cut. Or even Boggo, Jamie or Klein, they're all around the same rank.

He's not a junior or returning from injury which from memory were the exceptions.

I wonder if the LTA might officially say no, on the basis the AELTC will probably go over their head. Might depend on what happens in Queens I guess.

scottie1 · Futures level

I think the difference is that Evans can beat top players others you mention can't! They relaxed the rules to let Dan Cox in when he was outside top 250----- I couldnt understand why but he had a good season and they had already that year decided not to give bogga one!

PaulM · Tennis legend

They brought in the top 250 rule for a reason. To set a clear target so players knew exactly what they had to do to be eligible after years of just picking and choosing their favourites irrespective of form or ranking.

If the are going to arbitrarily start relaxing it for some but not others (the LTA I mean, the AELTC can and will do what they want) they may as well get rid of it all together.

scottie1 · Futures level

Yes I agree with you paul but if that was rigidly applied only Andy and Wardy would be in the singles. For someone like me who goes to Wimbledon to support British players I would be disgusted if only two players in the draw.

indiana · Tennis legend

I agree, Paul, that if the LTA say the only exceptions will be exceptional young players and injuries then they should stick to that, or they lose credibility. And I can see the arguement for having and sticking to that policy.

I tend to think more that they have worded it too strictly and should just have said say that top 250 would be a major factor.

RJA · Hall of fame

Going back to today's match I thought Dan played pretty well for most of it although not quite as good as his first two matches. Crucially he didn't serve quite as well and a couple of games aside Ebden played a very solid match and was clearly very comfortable playing on grass. Events also seemed to conspire against him with some pretty awful officiating* which cost him a few important points and various disturbances from the crowd at very bad times. On more than a couple of occasions he was made to wait between first and second serves by people moving in the crowd, people sitting just behind him talking or by ball kids messing about (some of those things happened to Ebden too although probably not at such important times). Perhaps most importantly was the the *1-1 point in the tie break. He was already in a foul mood having received a code violation in the previous game for his furious reaction to be held up between first and second serves. Having took the first point of the tie break against the serve and then lost the second he took his time and tried to regroup for the third point, he was seemingly just on the cusp of having just the right level of anger to focus and pushing it too far. Just as he was about to serve a cameraman walked onto the court walking into Dan's line of vision. Dan stopped, took his time and prepared to serve again. Then a woman who was sitting next to that cameraman got up and walked off court. Dan just had a look of "FFS what is going to happen next". He went on to lose the point and never really recovered his focus throughout the tie break.

All in all a very good week, the few bad points from today are easily outweighed by the big positives from his other two matches. Probably fair to say though that his obvious fury at some of today's frustrations will not have won him any fans among those tennis watchers who think that players should always act like good little boys regardless of the situation.

*The umpire lost all credibility on the opening point of the match. Evans hit what looked like a back hand winner down the line. The line judge (who was at Evans end) made no call and the umpire didn't over rule (it was near side so he had a good view). Ebden protested the the ball was wide. The umpire said he thought it was very close. He then asked the line judge what he thought and the line judge said that Evans had blocked his view. Ebden again insisted that the ball was wide and the umpire then decided to over rule, a good 20-30 seconds after the shot, and called 15-0 (point to Ebden). Evans understandably went ballistic and the umpire did eventually concede "Actually I can't do that" and then corrected the score the 0-15.

johnnylad · Tennis legend

Missed the point. If WCs didn't make commercial sense they wouldn't be used. This is at the top tournaments.

At the smaller tournaments you may have a point.

For me I would prefer some sort of age bias or injury bias rather than rankings bias

-- Edited by johnnylad on Saturday 8th of June 2013 01:46:23 PM

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Thanks for that last paragraph in particular - I turned on the stream right at the beginning just in time to see Dan remonstrating with the umpire but, of course, had no idea quite what had happened.

It made me laugh, and cringe. I have my French regional umpiring licence and the one thing you absolutely don;t want to do is to have a sort of 'brain f-art' early on.
That one you described is truly quite awful - the poor umpire must be cringing every time he thinks of it.

I completely agree with your summary - I thought Dan played pretty well but that, as you say, Ebden was very solid, very comfortable on grass, didn't get rattled, and played a clever game. There was practically nothing between them in the first although Ebden maybe served better on key points.

I also thought (not only in this match but several of the others) that some of the ballboys/girls were not up to scratch - a lot of wandering about as the players were getting ready to serve or even actually serving - some were really bad.

But a very good week by Dan.

RJA · Hall of fame

Coup Droit wrote:
It made me laugh, and cringe. I have my French regional umpiring licence and the one thing you absolutely don;t want to do is to have a sort of 'brain f-art' early on.
That one you described is truly quite awful - the poor umpire must be cringing every time he thinks of it.

I can't be certain but I am pretty sure it was the same umpire that Dan clashed with a futures event in Wrexham last year. The guy seems to have a fatal flaw in being a bit too soft to be an umpire, he tries to talk to players gently and seems like he wants everything to be cosy and consensual. Most players don't want that in an umpire, they want a strong figure who is in total control and who they can have confidence in.

denver23 · Social player

alex03maccy wrote:
Jaggy1876 wrote:
I think he will get a Wild Card although from what I've heard a lot of other players don't seem to be a fan of his so can imagine some of the other Brits not being pleased. The lack of players bar Ward in the top 275 mean they will probably stretch it to suit him. I think Jamie Baker is more deserving to be honest.
More deserving maybe but the Evo has a far bigger chance of winning a match, Jamie just doesn't have the weapons to beat the majority of players in the top 100.

The sort of comments I read on here and on other forums just highlights the reasons why, in my opinion, that there should be no wild cards into the main draw at any grand slam event - not just Wimbledon. If a player, man or woman, simply hasn't performed well enough over a 12 month period, as opposed to the odd day/week, then they should simply be made to qualify and if they are good enough then they will come through and good luck to them, but they should at least earn the right to be there - no ridiculous inside the top 250 rule - it is still open to bias and favouritism.

Would people on here really feel that Ward, Baker or even Dan Evans be worthy of a WC if they were not British? No, thought not! If we really have to have wc's then restrict them to 2 - certainly no more than 3 and let the tournament organisers award them to players in really exceptional circumstances such as a previous top 20 player who has proved himself and suffered a drop in ranking due to injury and is coming back on to the tour or something like in the case of Mel Oudin - who won Birmingham last year right from the the first round of qualifying beating several good players - not just one. Eight is far to many.

So simply increase the number of direct entries by another 5 or 6 and make the rest qualify.