Having spent the whole of Sunday standing on touchlines watching children play sport in the pouring rain, howling wind and ever increasing cold, I have just got home to find Richard Gabb has secured his maiden Future singles tournament win. Something to warm the heart, if not remove the pervasive hint of damp in every piece of clothing I have on!

Richly deserved, and a testament to sticking at it and relentlessly improving his results over a 2 year period. Delighted for him, and especially that it came now (before he started to fret about be so close so often, yet never prevailing).

I recall he put himself down for Challenger qualies in a few weeks time - nice to be able to test himself at a higher level when clearly playing very well, and without any obvious pressure to win or score ranking points. I'm fairly sure his targets for the year have been achieved now, so anything more is a bonus. And he's another young player - only 21 so plenty of opportunity to raise his level 3 or 4 notches yet I'm sure.

These Greek Futures are very harsh with their 23.6% tax deductions. Winning a 10K gets you $1300 on paper, but when you factor in the taxes, the $40 entry fee, airfare, accommodation and food, you are not left with much.


Edit: it appears that the Spanish Futures deduct 25%, so that highlights how little money you make at this level.

Coup Droit wrote:

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Yes. Interesting too to do the top 10 week 42 2013 versus top 10 week 42 2012 comparison.

Only Andy, James W and Dan E were in both top tens. The other 7 are all new.

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That is surprising, isn't it - not something many of us would have guessed (especially if we'd been told Oli wouldn't be one of them!)

But yes, when the new rankings come out, the GB top 10 will be over a year younger on average than week 42 last year (despite the three still in the GB top 10 a year later obviously being a year older), and will all have moved up significantly this year except Andy (who is more used to be the positive exception than the negative one!) - in fact, GB 2-10 will be up on average just over or just under 250 places, depending on the exact rankings (the average rise this year for GB 2-10 based on my estimates of tomorrow's rankings is 250.33)

Obviously to counterbalance that, there some very big fallers among the players who were in the GB top 10 a year ago but are not any more, but overall the GB men behind Andy have clearly had a very good (even if not spectacular) year.