I'm afraid that the 2014 calendar will be a mirror image of 2013's, with only a few cosmetic changes. I'll get a pleasant surprise if I see some hard court Challengers.
It does seem a shame that Ashley, Richard, Ed, Dave, Sean, Dan S, Josh M, George Coupland, Alex, Brydan, James, Dan E. etc. are all playing challengers this week - not to mention Dan C the week before, Marcus hopefully soon, Tom and Neil and Boggo and Oli who were all down to play, Kyle obviously, Josh G who can still hack it, Liam and mates who'd all like to give it a go etc. etc. etc. AND YET they've all got to travel to the four corners of the earth because there are no challengers in the UK . . .
I agree - it WOULD be nice to see a regular hard-court challenger next year . . .
anyway, we digress. On what evidence are we basing that there is to be no increase in GB challengers next year?
-- Edited by freerider on Saturday 26th of October 2013 08:35:27 PM
I have just deleted the off topic posts from this thread, please would everyone refrain from posting personal comments/insults and/or from responding to such posts.
I second your question freerider, I seem to remember some posts from a few weeks ago saying the opposite and that they had some inside information that we would be getting more challengers next year? Of courI'm, as usual, I'm relying on someone else(Steven?) to find said thread for me as I'm too lazy myself!
-- Edited by imoen on Sunday 27th of October 2013 02:31:54 AM
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You've got to also factor in that because of the reduced Sport England funding/Wimby funding ( due to new redevelopment work ), there is major cost cutting going on at the NTC at the moment. Therefore there isn't as much room to spend on challengers as there might have been in other years.
There's no reason to believe that there won't be more Challengers this year.
However, if the reason for not having more Challengers is that they don't have money (as opposed to "tough love", or whatever the new philosophy is), it's completely their fault. Obviously the LTA don't see the participation rates of France, or the growing market of China, but here are some countries with more than two Challengers.
Uzbekistan Colombia Slovakia Turkey Ecuador
All of them have more money than the LTA, I guess?
-- Edited by Salmon on Thursday 31st of October 2013 07:47:52 PM
Of course, the only duty of a federation isn't that of organising Challengers. And instead of having Challengers, the LTA guys spend a lot on state of the art facilities, and the best coaches. These countries must be spending A LOT more, then, because since the emergence of Murray in 2005, they've had these players (there could be a few more, I'm not going in too deep) break into the singles top 100 -
Denis Istomin
Alejandro Falla (not sure about this one, did Falla first break into the top 100 before 2005?) Santiago Giraldo ** Alejandro Gonzalez is not there yet, but he'll be there before the year ends
Lucas Lacko Martin Klizan
Marsel Ilhan
-- Edited by Salmon on Thursday 31st of October 2013 10:09:16 PM
You've got to also factor in that because of the reduced Sport England funding/Wimby funding ( due to new redevelopment work ), there is major cost cutting going on at the NTC at the moment. Therefore there isn't as much room to spend on challengers as there might have been in other years.
You've got to also factor in that because of the reduced Sport England funding/Wimby funding ( due to new redevelopment work ), there is major cost cutting going on at the NTC at the moment. Therefore there isn't as much room to spend on challengers as there might have been in other years.
They have completely decimated the GB Challenger tournament profile from around 7-8 p.a. at peak to just 2 last year. All years when SE and Wimbledon funding was still very much large and growing. If they simply grew player numbers and club membership numbers in line with targets, there should be more than enough additional fee income to cover these tournaments and a whole bunch more.