Week 38 - Challenger (€106,500): Pekao Szczecin Open - Szczecin, Poland (red clay) - doubles

steven · Tennis legend

Week 38 - Challenger (€106,500): Pekao Szczecin Open - Szczecin, Poland (red clay) - doubles

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

A decent first-round draw for the Skupskis:

R1: (3) Ken Skupski & Neal Skupski CR 231 vs (WC) Kamil Majchrzak & Jan Zielinski (POL/POL) UNR

Ken has risen 12 places in today's rankings to 87 & Neal 28 to 144. smile

Spectator · All-time great

Doing a really good job of using Challengers as they are meant to be used, aren't they. Hope this one goes well, too.

indiana · Tennis legend

Very good. Wow, just imagine that we had 10 singles players in the top 150 !

spud · Challenger qualifying

Could be wrong but this followed by Orleans and Mons, 3 "super challengers" in a row could pick up some big points for the brothers if they choose that route

wolf · Tennis legend

R1: (3) Ken Skupski & Neal Skupski CR 231 beat (WC) Kamil Majchrzak & Jan Zielinski (POL/POL) UNR 7-5 6-0

QF: (3) Ken Skupski & Neal Skupski CR 231 v Denys Molchanov & Tim Puetz (UKR/GER)

QF about to start.

steven · Tennis legend

Already a set up - 6-2

korriban · Challenger level

The boys won 2 & 0. The stats for this match are, frankly, terrifying - the brothers simply destroyed the opposition.

In fact watching them "live", it is almost like a different game vs the likes of Rice/Thornley Delgado/a.n.other (I'm sorry, but it's true). I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the Skupski's in the world's top 20 by the end of 2014 - I think they really are THAT good. And they could start putting pressure on Leon for inclusion in DC - well maybe; we certainly are spolied for choice in that department!

What a performance.

john · Top national player

Skupski/Skupski v Bryan/Bryan

It's a family affair!

Spectator · All-time great

That's wonderful news. The elder Mr Skuspki had 165 points to defend before 30/9 (St Petersburg ATP SF + Orleans CH W), which looked ambitious. Between last week and this week, that's now done. Only 35 pts to defend for the rest of the year. Super stuff.

-- Edited by Spectator on Friday 20th of September 2013 03:02:28 PM

Spectator · All-time great

Checked to see the rankings rises of a few former university doubles players who were fairly meteoric when they joined/rejoined the Tour. Mr Skupski senior, despite having no set partner and little "official" assistance (as I recall), went up to 258 in his first year; Mr Inglot went from UNR to 124 between 09/08/09 and 09/08/10; Mr Fleming from UNR to 101 between 21/9/08 and 21/9/09 - and rose to 79 one week later. With help from his older brother, Mr Skupski junior should be somewhere in 120s/130s by end of this week ... and with no points to defend this year and four more 0 pointers to be dropped, has the capacity to improve yet further. Not bad.

PS: Do think it's sad that for all that his YTD prize money should be ... $10,716. Little more money for doubles players feels in order.

-- Edited by Spectator on Friday 20th of September 2013 03:29:45 PM

steven · Tennis legend

indiana wrote:
Then again, we have a significant number of Brits who have turned their back on singles and populate the top 100 in doubles, so maybe not such a real issue with prize money disparity.

What it does more mean probably is that playing week to week as a say 400 to 600 ranked singles player is far from financially lucrative and if you have doubles ability it may be better to go down that route, particularly if you can get yourself significantly into the doubles top 100.

There have been threads in the past where folk have bemoaned such as Colin Fleming giving up singles to concentrate solely on doubles, but understanding the case financially.

While it may be more an issue with ( non ) financial reward at lower rankings levels in singles, I would not want a switch out of singles into doubles to become more appealing.

I agree with this. Clearly for players of a certain standard, doubles is already more financially appealing than singles, and if they manage to play doubles at ATP level on a regular basis, it is likely to be considerably more lucrative than playing Challenger singles - probably too much more, otherwise we wouldn't 'lose' so many potentially good singles players.

Don't get me wrong, it's great to see how well the Skupskis are doing, I'm sure they've made the right decision for themselves, I'm becoming a big fan and, given how well they seem to be gelling as a team, I don't think it's out of the question that they could become GB's answer to the Bryan Bros, even if maybe not quite hitting the heights they have

However, just think how exceptional a tennis player you'd have to be to make anything like as rapid a rise up the singles rankings in your first full year on tour as Neal has made up the doubles rankings ...

-- Edited by steven on Friday 20th of September 2013 04:54:25 PM

Spectator · All-time great

I'd be more worried about that if it weren't for two things: firstly, fast doubles rises will be abetted by a seriously good partner. In Neil's case, he's come in with a partner who was top 100 ... so his rapid rise is partially down to his merit, but also partially down to the other half of the team. You can't get that boost in singles. So the capacity for rapid doubles rises is inherently going to be greater.

Secondly, the other two who also made meteoric rises (Inglot and Fleming - both of whom were also fortunate with partners in their first year) have stayed at the top and are both within the top 35. So they clearly are extremely good doubles players ... and I'm not necessarily more surprised that they made a big leap early on than that, say, John Isner (YE 844 to YE 106) did.

As for whether doubles should be so distinctly non-lucrative ... well, it is going to depend in part on your attitude towards doubles, isn't it. If you see it as inherently inferior to singles and hence would prefer to see people play singles at a lower level rather than doubles at a higher, then the current structure of rewards makes sense. But if you regard it as a discipline in its own right - and a lovely one (not that I have any bias!) - then the level of reward seems somewhat absurdly low.

-- Edited by Spectator on Friday 20th of September 2013 05:20:47 PM

Shhh · Challenger level

The brothers make yet another final with a 6-3 6-4 win earlier today

korriban · Challenger level

Shhh wrote:
The brothers make yet another final with a 6-3 6-4 win earlier today

Only saw the first set and the start of the second. They were 1-3 down, looking very hit and miss - both brothers.

Then it was as though someone had pushed a "turbo" button in their brains.........suddenly, and with no warning they sped up, eliminated all errors and played inspired tennis, winning 7 games in a row! 6-3 2-0. At that point I switched off, and I presume they cruised the rest.

They are a very good ATP level team already and if they can pick up another 2 or 3 CH wins this year, and perhaps even go on a decent run at an ATP event, I think they could even make the AO - which they only felt was a very long shot when they were interviewed earlier in the year