In answer to Korribans' point, and with no idea really about the UK coaches' general coaching ethos, I wonder how much tennis Uk youngsters play against adults ?

In France, all youngsters will play a huge amount of competitive tennis against adults. From top national junior players down to lowly third-team club juniors, from the age of 13 or so, they'll play for their club team and do league tennis and they'll also enter a packet of the regular money tournaments which are open to all and everyone plays.
The higher ranked ones obviously struggle at first (because they're playing higher ranked opponents) but it's just part and parcel of youth tennis. They obviously play some junior tennis too but if you look at the results sheet of a good 14 year-old, two-thirds (at least) of their results for the year will be against adults.

Although I wasn't sure about it when I learnt (and felt rather 'protective' when my sons first started), it actually works a treat - the kids learn quite quickly to hold their own, how to deal with a lot of different styles of play and certainly play aggressively (although that might be by hitting massive top-spin which bothers some of the older players rather than hitting flat, driven shots where lack of weight can be a problem). Yes, some of the ultra-fit ones will try and run the older guys into the ground, but there's certainly no defensive mind-set - it's all about offensive play in a variety of ways. Percentage tennis would get them nowhere.
French junior coaching in general has moved (as of ten years ago) completely away from the safe, high percentage tennis philosophy (certain coaches still veer that way, due to natural character and maybe age) but the 'federal' policy is definitely based around attack and not too much fuss made of UE.

(NB Good luck to Tom, too - it's going to be tricky but, as you say Spectator, he;s already had a good tournament, anything else is all upside).

korriban wrote:

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RJA wrote:

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A horror trip for Luke and Jonny. At least Cameron had a good run in a futures event.

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 I wonder if Greg has been advising the boys to play the high percentage get-the-ball-in-play stuff that he seemed to want Dan Evans to play, even though a more aggressive higher risk approach was the reason Dan caused so many problems for his opponents. Increasingly, one senses, even junior players at the elite level may be being rewarded for aggression, rather than the percentage tennis that perhaps used to be the winning strategy. Whatever the actual reason our boys have fared so poorly, Kyle aside, it doesn't suggest at this stage that our 95 and 96 year groups are likely to be the first where we can say we have a "conveyor belt" of top 100 players.

I come back to the Sapwell-Coric match at the 2010 Junior Orange Bowl which Sapwell won. Sapwell, who was physically much bigger, was playing (and presumably coached to play) a percentage game designed to win the match; Coric was playing an attacking aggressive game which will be the style he will need to be successful one day in the pros. He didn't win, but the entire match was on his racquet. I just hope this isn't a theme across the coaching of our elite juniors.

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I would be very surprised, and frankly horrified, if Greg is involved with the tactical approach of our boys and given that he didn't even know how many boys we had in the main draw I don't think he is really involved with them in a significant way. Jonny's main coach is James Trotman, who was in New York. As for Luke he often works with Mark Hilton if he is a futures events with Broady but I don't know who he is with a junior events.

On the wider point I agree, at least in part, with your concerns. There does seem to be a big, big effort to get our juniors playing on clay as much as possible and while I can see the very obvious positives of this there are downsides. If you look at Martin Weston's twitter feed you will see near constant references to hard work, fight, graft, grind, digging it out, etc. Now obviously such things are good but there is a danger in overly emphasising this side of the game to the detriment of flair and aggressive tennis. I don't want to be too critical because I see some good signs with how we are developing young players but I do hope we are getting the balance right.

I think its difficult be too critical about players playing in their last junior comps.
They've all had success at senior level, so that is their main focus now.

Neither Luke nor Jonny entered the doubles

Doubles R1

(3) Khachanov/Medvedev (RUS) v Nakagawa/Norrie (JPN/GBR)

Presumably if the weather continues to be foul for any length of time, they'll eventually bus them all off to the indoor tennis club where they've played matches before ...

Who knows why we dont have success but it has to be something to do with the coaching and leadership. Teach them to go for it. If they lose, they lose. Problem is, then jobs are on the line if the results dont come........