We need more British challengers

A1 tennis academy · Satellite level

We need more British challengers

paulisi · Tennis legend

LTA justified not putting on more challengers due to the lack of GB players not being direct entry or not getting further than R1/R2

That should change next year(whether it will or not is another question) - we should have potentially 10-15 players with a ranking of 100-300.

I know nothing of the financial position of the counties, but if they have tonnes of cash shouldn't they be supporting some of their own players via sponsorship.

County week may well be expensive, but it does help to develop some of the younger players and develops a team ethic.

indiana · Tennis legend

Quite a few of us have been banging on about the need for both more GB men's challengers and GB women's 10Ks ( in particular relative to the number of men's futures and women's 25Ks ).

In both cases, the relative current spread of GB players makes relative moves to more of these tournaments make sense, and in general one would expect GB players to "outperform" at home.

Looks like the GB women's 10K this week is going rather well !

EddietheEagle · County player

It is strongly arguable that the development of the pro tours has essentially reduced county tennis to an anachronistic irrelevance.

Didn't the Telegraph run an article recently on this? I think the writer was trying to fathom out how it all fitted in with the development of a modern ATP/WTA professional and came to the conclusion that whilst it didn't, County Week itself remained popular and successful in itself.

EddietheEagle · County player

I would like to see a UK Challenger that is conceived, developed, financed and managed entirely outside the aegis of the LTA.

Why does every pro tournament in this country need to be run and financed by the LTA in conjunction with its selected corporate partner, Aegon?

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

As I mentioned on another thread, I love County Week, and more importantly so do most of the participants be they good juniors, retired or current professionals, college players or just stalwarts of club doubles. Although it doesn't on the face of it fit into the development of lean and means world beaters, I think the up and coming players do benefit from it. The team environment allows friendships to form, mentors to be found and advice to be sought and given. It is also huge fun, albeit extremely competitive. There is a real need for top juniors and young professionals occasionally having a breather to rediscover the joy of what they do. Having to serve out and win tight matches for the team is also good practice for many of the younger players.

Hope the LTA leave it alone. The budget they have had over recent years for elite tennis should have, if properly directed, have provided everything needed for a conveyer belt of quality professional players. That budget shouldn't need topping up from the County Week pot!

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

EddietheEagle wrote:
I would like to see a UK Challenger that is conceived, developed, financed and managed entirely outside the aegis of the LTA.

Why does every pro tournament in this country need to be run and financed by the LTA in conjunction with its selected corporate partner, Aegon?

Because that is the exclusive deal negotiated with Aegon

A1 tennis academy · Satellite level

It does not but is there another major corporate sponsor that is willing to take the leap ?

paulisi · Tennis legend

Why would any company want to splash big money sponsoring challengers. Little press coverage, very few spectators.

steven · Tennis legend

paulisi wrote:
Why would any company want to splash big money sponsoring challengers. Little press coverage, very few spectators.

It happens in other countries and they actually publicise it and get rather more press coverage and spectators. It may be that in the UK,we are too spoilt with Wimbledon, Queen's WTF, etc, but as far as I can tell, the LTA have never really tried publicising Challengers in the local area that much.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Challengers I agree are the next step but also agree with Paulsi what's the point until we have a pool of players who will get DE and run deep into the tournament. There is no point in running the events for players from other countries to benefit from, now we are close to producing a crop of players who may benefit it is probably worth looking at the balance between futures and challengers. I don't know the timescale required to actually make such a transition but I would imagine 18-24 months minimum.

indiana · Tennis legend

I'd like to think that the LTA had already embarked on making some transition.

Jeff Stelling · Club Coach

A1 tennis academy wrote:
A frantic member Berkshire phoned me frantically asking me where Marcus was .

Not relevant to the thread, but boy did this sentence make me laugh.

freerider · Futures level

Oakland2002 wrote:
Challengers I agree are the next step but also agree with Paulsi what's the point until we have a pool of players who will get DE and run deep into the tournament. There is no point in running the events for players from other countries to benefit from, now we are close to producing a crop of players who may benefit it is probably worth looking at the balance between futures and challengers. I don't know the timescale required to actually make such a transition but I would imagine 18-24 months minimum.

Maybe it wouldn't benefit players directly in terms of points (although we do have players who are capable of penetrating challengers), you have to look at the long term benefit of our juniors who wouldn't travel to overseas challengers (probably) being exposed to a higher level of tennis and to see the proffesionalism and conduct of players who are grinding away on the tour inside the top 200

EddietheEagle · County player

The Optimist wrote:
EddietheEagle wrote:

Why does every pro tournament in this country need to be run and financed by the LTA in conjunction with its selected corporate partner, Aegon?

Because that is the exclusive deal negotiated with Aegon

The LTA is there as regulator, not as monopolist or destroyer of initiative.

If anyone had the wit, imagination and money to put on a challenger,they ought to be welcomed with open arms, not told by some old fart 'you can't do that because of our obligation to a 'corporate partner''.

British tennis needs a good dose of the kind of support that A1 Pharms brings to the game. We need these private enterprise initiatives all over the land.