Week 4 - Challenger ($50,000) - Maui, Hawaii, USA (Hard)

chavkev · Intermediate Club Player

RE: Week 4 - Challenger ($50,000) - Maui, Hawaii, USA (Hard)

Julia Carrot · All-time great

Tssssk

SMC1809 · All-time great

korriban wrote:
Stircrazy wrote:
Josh wrote:
Will be interesting to see the reason on the bottom of draw sheet once it's updated on the ATP site. Wonder if they'll go with a simple 'absent' rather than list some sort of ailment.
It says "LATE"...
There is absolutely no excuse for pulling out days in advance and not informing the tournament and withdrawing formally through the standard ATP channels. Whatever Dan's actual reasons for not playing (and all the mood music suggests that they were lame at best, or non existent at worst), the least he could do was withdraw properly. It does him and GB tennis no favours to be doing stuff like this overseas. Even if he is angry with someone, that's not the fault of the Hawaii challenger. Unfortunately any sane observer seeing the dip in his form, the unexplained flying home to GB despite an agreed itinerary and tournament schedule, his failure to withdraw from Hawaii formally, and his subsequent demotion from the DC squad.........could only conclude there is something significant at play behind the scenes. Will we ever find out? Just how many chances can a person be given?
good luck James tonight. I don't think he'll win, but I would love him to play a blinder!!!!

It would be good of the truth came out at some stage in the future. We know that Dan and Leon had a conversation, following which Dan flew home, and Leon picked the team sans Dan.

We know Mike Dickson wrote about it, but given he's a journalist who won't let the truth come between him and a chance to print, particularly when it comes to Dan, we don't know what was really said.

So, did Dan tell Leon that he wasn't going to play Maui, and was subsequently dropped, or did Leon tell Dan he wasn't in the team and Dan flew home if a strop? Either way, Dan should have withdrawn in the correct manner, but do we know that he didn't?

steven · Tennis legend

L32: James Ward WR 165 lost to (6) Denis Kudla (USA) WR 113 (CH 90 in Jul) by 4 & 3

Pity, since the stream quality was good and it would have been nice to see a bit more this week!

Just 3 break points each - James converted 1, Denis all 3.

freerider · Futures level

that was pretty dreadful viewing.

PaulM · Tennis legend

Approps of nothing but I actually considered the Royal Lahaina for my honeymoon before ending up further south. It's a beautiful part if the world but can get very windy from the trades. Hopefully James gets a couple of days good practice and relaxation in to enjoy Hawaii before Davis Cup.

RJA · Hall of fame

SMC1809 wrote:
So, did Dan tell Leon that he wasn't going to play Maui, and was subsequently dropped, or did Leon tell Dan he wasn't in the team and Dan flew home if a strop? Either way, Dan should have withdrawn in the correct manner, but do we know that he didn't?

Even if Leon told Dan he wasn't going to be in the Davis Cup squad, which IMO is unlikely given Dan's start to the season compared to James, it still isn't a good reason for Dan withdrawing from Maui.

As for whether he withdrew in the proper time frame, either he failed to do so or there was a **** up by the officials. Given this is the third time in roughly 6 months that Dan has failed to show up at a challenger after initially appearing in the main draw I think I know where my money would be. Dan has a very clear pattern of behaviour when it comes to entering and withdrawing from tournaments within the proscribed time frames and so while everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt once or twice it is my opinion that Dan long ago exhausted his "get out of jail free" cards.

RJA · Hall of fame

Didn't really expect much from James against Kudla but sounds like an awful match. Pity that James didn't have the relatively nice draw that would have awaited Dan.

indiana · Tennis legend

Pity. A good few matches from James here this week would have been very well timed.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Wonder if this could be part of the reason for Dino's defeat: he & Jaziri have been replaced by lucky losers in the doubles & according to the draw sheet, James has some kind of shoulder problem. cry Could be curtains for his DC place...

indiana · Tennis legend

I was imagining that James defeat was simply down to Kudla not unexpectedly being the better player on the day. I hope that James is OK for the Davis Cup and at least presents a selection poser.

Ratty · County player

korriban wrote:
Unfortunately any sane observer seeing the dip in his form,

Cracked record I know, but surely the more rational explanation is that the 6 weeks last summer represented a spike in his form, and what has happened since is just regression to the mean.

indiana · Tennis legend

The thing is Ratty, having produced that sort of form over quite a number of weeks, Evo has shown what he can do. So any "regression to the mean" in this case is to considerably underperform as to his capabilities ( particularly with his own, at least historical, large standard deviation ). Tennis players aren't ( or at least shouldn't be ) some sort of random generating machine ! To practically suggest that this should just be accepted as some sort of statistical norm, when dealing with developing tennis players, is absurd.

Not that to me he did greatly underform in the US Challengers following the US Open and in the Aussie Open qualifying. To me, some folk ( including himself ? ) had over- expectations. What I would agree is that to expect the performance line at least not to at times dip or plateau is unrealistic.

But what the heck he is up to the rest of the time who knows.

RJA · Hall of fame

Evo is always going to be a player whose performances will vary considerably, partly because of his high risk brand of tennis and partly because of his personality, he loves a challenge and hates the mundane. So going through a bad patch is not in itself overly concerning, what is concerning is having twice come home early from a planned block of tournaments with the very strong suspicion being that tennis reasons were not his primary reason for doing so.

-- Edited by RJA on Wednesday 22nd of January 2014 08:28:28 PM

korriban · Challenger level

Ratty wrote:
korriban wrote:
Unfortunately any sane observer seeing the dip in his form,
Cracked record I know, but surely the more rational explanation is that the 6 weeks last summer represented a spike in his form, and what has happened since is just regression to the mean.

Indeed. cracked record. I agree with Indy's Response. I guess what frustrates me is that so many LTA types have behaved so patiently, positively and professionally towards Dan for so many years. To have this thrown back in their faces so consistently, so negatively and so unprofessionaly (why pretend otherwise) must be galling in the extreme. Just how hard can it be to agree a plan and stick to it?