indiana wrote:

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A couple of good looking wins there.

Would be very good if Lewis could get his singles ranking moving back in the nice direction. I've not noticed any singles ranking targets for him for the next year or two ?

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Inside the top 500 would be nice

I know its only the first tournament of the year for Marcus & Lewis, but surely if Marcus' ambition is to push into challenger tournaments later this year then Lewis is going to have to start matching and bettering today's result on a regular basis if he intends to follow? I'm not sure what the team plans to do once that step is taken, but as Indiana said, there don't appear to have been any singles targets set for Lewis, or at least not any that have been announced here. Apologies if they have and I've missed them. Either way, congratulations to Marcus and Lewis for getting their seasons under way with a win each and the best of luck for the next round.

As has been suggested quite a number of times by various forum members, "just" being top 250 by Wimbledon without playing ( let alone winning ) challenger matches would surely run a real risk of not being enough for those who matter re the awarding of a MD WC.

Actually, Marcus intimated recently that he was planning to play a now cancelled challenger ( in Turkey ? ), and was very disappointed that it was cancelled, so it looks not unlikely that challengers are in his plans for the relatively near future.

I'm not sure how much of a priority a Wimby MD WC is ( the last Marcus target I saw for mid year was to be in the 200s in the rankings ), but clearly would be great if he did get one.

What I would say is that Marcus and Lewis could certainly get their doubles rankings under 250 and / or combined ranking under 500. The vast bulk of their current points were earned after Wimbledon last year, so are banked as it were, and if they could carry on adding decent points in the first half of this year their rankings should certainly improve ( currently doubles WRs 316 and 327 )

BUT these points are all from futures doubles. Yes, they have a lot of titles, but the standard of future doubles shall we say can be variable. Personally, almost even moreso than singles, I would want to see some achievement at challenger level.

Futures doubles is no real prep for Grand Slam doubles.

and Marcus and Lewis have won their first round doubles match;

6-0 3-6 10-5

Livescore have Marcus winning by walkover this morning. Lewis just starting