2015 - A Good Year/A Bad Year?

Floody78 · Junior player

2015 - A Good Year/A Bad Year?

paulisi · Tennis legend

2014 was generally a good year for the top 15-20 men, the women not so.

Everyone had their ups and downs with the downs being Evo and Oli missing half of the season. To have four in the top 200 is decent and quite a few more in 200-300 bracket. The only disappointment would be very few of the lower ranked players have progressed.

For a good 2015, if we could get 3 in the top 100 and 6 in the top 200, that would be an achievement. However I am more concerned about those lower down progressing and the ultimate aim would be to him Bob's target of 20 in the top 500.

huntley93 · Strong Club Player

id say its been a great year. when i 1st joined this board a couple of years ago there was next to no one playing challengers with most sticking to futures playing the occasional challenger, now we have a group of players who are not only playing challengers regularly but now starting to consistently go deep into them

Oakland2002 · All-time great

I like the targets set by paulisi for 2015, 4 in the top 100 is possible and would be amazing although it would necessity significant progress on the part of both Liam and Kyle. Wardy is all but there and I feel this is his time ie the next couple of years should be his best if he stays injury free.

Marcus has some conditioning work to do and I feel if he does it top 200 and more would be relatively straight forward for him. A Dan or two should also be able to get sub 200.

Bobs target of 20 in the top 500 would mean mens tennis is in rude health, although it is the 22 year olds and under in the top 500 that I think are the best marker of potential future progress and a more modest target of 6 fitting that criteria would really excite me for the future. Sustained progress by Luke Bambridge, Cameron Norrie and hopefully the return of an invigorated Oli Golding and perhaps we are not too far away.

I really enjoyed following UK mens tennis this year, roll on 2015

steven · Tennis legend

I've been thinking about this on and off since the question was posted earlier and paulisi's targets make sense to me - if they were achieved, I would consider 2015 a good year.

Worth remembering as well that we have only had 3 men in the year-end ATP top 100 once in the last quarter of a century (Andy, Tim & Greg in 2005) and before that, around half or more of the top 100 came from the 4 grand slam nations, so the strength in depth internationally wasn't remotely comparable.

We haven't had 6 men in the year-end ATP top 200 since the end of 2000 either and while we have had 20 in the top 500 (it last happened in 2005), we haven't even had 20 men in the year-end ATP top 500 - the record was 19 in 1975, though back then (long before Futures and probably before Satellites), only 428 players in total had year-end rankings!

So given that, while these targets aren't earth-shattering, the fact that they feel realistic at all is encouraging

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

It would be a very good year if we could get .......... 20 in the Top 500. How did you know I was going to say that ? The problem is, everytime I think we are getting close, people go and retire on us. First of all it was Fitzy, then Jamie B and Josh G, and now if course Oli is about to go the same way although I still hold out hope of a change of heart.

We currently have 14 in the Top 500. Of those, Oli will drop out shortly and unless he can get his injury sorted out, Evo will follow early next year. Evo has 162 points at the moment, but 128 of them drop off before the end of Feb. That could even put him in the realms of having to qualify for futures and I fear for his motivation to play at that level. A few friendly WCs wouldn't go amiss early in the year if he is fit.

We also have to guess that somewhere along the line, there will be an unexpected retirement or a player having a long injury break. Alex W is my biggest fear in that regard as he has suffered more than most, injury wise. Hope I'm wrong.

On the plus side, we have others that could get (back) in. Luke will get there, I'm sure and Tom F has shown a recent return to form and fitness. If he plays enough tournaments, I am sure he will get there too. Clearly Farris and Cameron would be big candidates but for their college committments. Could we also be adding the name Aljaz Bedene to the list during the course of the year ?

Then we have the likes of Ash, Rich G and Neil who have all proved in the past that they have what it takes. Jack C has 40 points at the moment, 36 of which have come in the 2nd 6 months of this year, so he is definitely in with a shot. Toby has the ability in my opinion and I would love to see that happening. Will this be the year that JWH finally makes his mark ? That would be great too. From slightly further back, there is a chance that Jonny O'Mara and Joe S might make the next step up and sneak in.

So are we finally going to make it this year ? There is a chance, but in truth, I think we are further away now than we were 12 or 24 months ago. Pretty much everything would have to fall into place and there is no room for slack anywhere. So come on guys, surprise me.

-- Edited by Bob in Spain on Sunday 16th of November 2014 09:59:20 PM

indiana · Tennis legend

I certainly can go with paulisi's 3 in the top 100 and 6 in the top 200 really helping make it a good year. As Steven suggests, the fact that these targets currently look realistic, if tough, is encouraging, and says quite a bit about the position 2014 has left us in and how good a year this has been. Further advancement by this top group would be good to see.

It would be great to see positive movement across the board and certainly 20 in the top 500 is not for me the ultimate aim ( sorry, Bob and paulisi ), I couldn't give you one. It is though certainly a very good indicator to look at and the drop this year in the top 500 was a negative balancer.

However, to me, the higher ranking targets weigh heavier. It is these more top end targets that more make the year, and to take that further, say Andy has a great year, wins another Slam, gets back in the top 3, surely his year has a disproportionate weighting to the year as a whole. But there would needless to say most certainly also have to be positive moves from within the troops.

paulisi · Tennis legend

I am going to list a few male players who are not in Steven's top 25 table to watch for this year, who I think could fly up the rankings:

Josh Ward Hibbert
Jonny O'Mara
Joe Salisbury
Rob Carter
Scott Clayton
Aswen Lizen
Robbie Ridout
Evan Hoyt
Andy Bettles

Scott would be my best choice.

indiana · Tennis legend

Certainly an important year for JWH and Jonny.

I appreciate that there have certainly been such as injury issues, but these two have so far generated proportionately more positive talk than positive results.

So, would be good to see real advancement from them and these others listed.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

I too think paulisi's targets are about right - and, as steven says, they're right for a 'good year', not an average one, not an excellent one.

I think though that listing a whole heap of players from 800 up is pretty much hedging one's bets. :)

However, if I was going to pick one complete outsider as a great long-shot, I'd go for Josh Sapwell.

This'll probably be the kiss of death but you heard it here first :) Go, Josh S !

(JWH goes without saying, bit early for Evan but a fan of his too).

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Coup Droit wrote:

I think though that listing a whole heap of players from 800 up is pretty much hedging one's bets. :)

wink

Don't want to upset anyone by leaving them out. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Floody78 · Junior player

I posted this as I was interested as to what people would constitute a good year.

Personally, I would say that I would hope for 7-8 players in the top 200, with 3 of these being in the top 100. (I haven't included Bedene in this, though I would really like him to come!)

I haven't really thought about lower down the pile, as its hard to know, without watching players. I do hope to go to a couple of events next year. Does anyone know when the schedule comes out?

I would also say that having that many players in the Top 200 would lead to better practice opportunities for lower ranked players and will bring them on.

paulisi · Tennis legend

Most of my selections have had injury hit seasons or are new to the new tour, a bit more detail (PS - there were plenty more to pick from, but I elected not to choose)

JWH should improve now he has a steady coaching team and remains injury free.

Jonny - struggling with niggles, if he can stay fit, he should move into the 600-800 ranking

Joe Salisbury - definitely talented enough, but very much a doubles specialist and his singles ranking may suffer as and when he moves up to challengers. Playing 15K's already creates problems if he is reaches doubles finals as he cannot always make qualifying cut off times. Natural grass court player.

Rob Carter - missed a large chunk of the season. Doesn't seem to play too much overseas, so I suspect finances may be an issue in getting that ranking higher

Scott Clayton - had terrible injury problems with a shoulder, but now seems to be fully fit and has the game to really knock on the door of the top 500. I saw him play really well at Wirral with the shoulder injury and emphatically take out a seed.

Aswin Lizen - not seen him play, but seems to be progressing well on the main tour - speculative choice

Robbie Ridout - impressed with his performances at Wrexham, where he looked a top 1000 player and he is picking up points nicely now

Evan Hoyt - missed the whole season, but is very talented and just needs match practice to get back

Andy Bettles - seen him a few times and he did just enough to win each time and then pushed some of the better players close - speculative choice as his ranking points are not really coming through as quickly as I thought they would.

I'll throw in a few names on a separate thread for the girls at a later date, but that is a lot harder as there weren't that many events in the NW this year, so I've not seen many live.

indiana · Tennis legend

7 or 8 players in the top 200 and there would have to be quite a lot of downers for it not to be a ruddy good year.

I can think of more than 8 that individually could make it, but so many together would be tremendous.

Floody78 · Junior player

I guess the way I looked at it is that the 4 players there are very likely to stay there and with one more already so close having 5 at the end of the year would show very little movement.