What is going on. I had a little "siesta" for an hour and when I wake up, Dave has completely turned it around.

Now 4-1* up in the decider.

Looks ike my "sleeping" tactic which worked to such good effect for James Ward last week, has worked again. Just hope I haven't woken up a couple of games too soon.

RJA wrote:

---

steven wrote:

---

I doubt even the most pessimistic/cynical among us would have predicted a 19-year-old ranked 1677 (CH 1624, junior CH 609) to come through a section containing Ed, Dan, George and Josh. So, er, let's hope Josh can help GB avoid the ultimate Shane shame.

---

In fairness it looks like Ryan Shane is one of these annoying college players who is much better than his ranking suggests.

---

Yes, I'm sure he's a bit of a rankings ringer, but even so. Of course, this is further evidence of what we already knew - that if you're going to have a go at Challenger qualifying, the US is the riskiest (and thus stupidest?) place to do it, all other things being equal, since while the Challenger main draws in the US aren't ridiculously strong, qualifying (especially on the east coast) always seems to be a minefield full of under-ranked college players.

I realise all other things are not equal if there are no hard court Challengers elsewhere or if the other options are isolated events that it is harder to build a schedule around, but it wouldn't have taken a genius to work out that Asia or Australia would be better bets at the moment.

Of course, no doubt there are reasons we are not aware of but the real concern is that it might make players give up on the idea of trying Challengers and drop back to Futures again quicker than would be good for them long-term. 

We may yet get 2 players through to the main draw despite the minefield - if so, they will have done very well.

 steven wrote:

---

RJA - yes, that's fair enough, I guess all other things weren't equal here - I just worry about players feeling pushed into giving up on Challengers before they've really had chance to get going in them, and not getting regular points from them because you are in unusually strong qualifying draws seems like the most likely reason for players dropping back down.

 

---

 
I'm sure what you've said happens all the time, but if at this age you are still stuck in Futures, you're not making a living out of the singles Tour, that is more or less guaranteed. Some fairy godmother doesn't appear to guys like Prodon at the age of 28 - it's just that the penny finally drops, or they stop getting injured. The ability to regularly beat people in the 100-200 range has to be there by the time you are 24 or 25 (and I'm probably being generous here), and you're not getting it at the Futures level. Now I have a lot of respect, and time, for anyone who plays Futures, but the standard of tennis is way below what you have at the top (duh).

 I quite liked the Boggo approach where he kept going for Challengers, no matter what his ranking was. Obviously Boggo was playing a much higher level of tennis than what the players here are doing, even in his troughs, but you have to admire his confidence.

So please, boys, keep entering Challengers regularly, irrespective of where you're ranked. Otherwise you're not getting there, anyway, so what's there to lose?