James Ward

john · Top national player

James Ward

Yorkie · Lower Club Player

Thanks for the responses and the warm welcome!

Wardy will benefit a great deal from appearing in a few semis this year i feel, and that experience will help him push on to the finals and hopefully titles in 2008

I think 250 is a great goal to work towards but his game on the indoor hard courts will need to improve in order to reach that in 08

Sheddie · administrator

yeah when I watched him, he didn't come to the net that much but appeared to be a solid volleyer and does need to be more aggressive and move up the court more to progress further up the rankings....agree that you that like Murray he's deceptively quick for such a big guy

Needs to do better on the faster surfaces but it will take time having spent so much of the past few years virtually entirely on clay....he's got the weapons but its all about player closer to the baseline and taking control of the points more...if you stand several feet behind the baseline and look to counterpunch indoors, you're gonna get blown off the court

Definately think he will be a regular competitor at challenger level sometime in the next few years, going to be interesting following him next year

RedCabbage · Club Coach

I thought Ward had exiled himself to Spain ala Murray so wasn't an LTA bank-rollee. I could be wrong, though.

imoen · Admin: Moderator+Tennis Legend

As i understand it RedCabbage, Ward had indeed exiled himself to Spain but has been brought back in the fold as it were this year and is now based at the NTC. As for funding I have no clue.

Sheddie · administrator

guys.....thornley 4 top 100 is not Sean....I know this 100%....he's a p*sstaker trying to stir up trouble and I'm deleting his posts in this thread and the Vicki Brook thread......

at the moment I'm not going to ban but if "thornley 4 top 100" makes any more posts/threads which are deliberately slagging off other players or trying to create bad feeling towards Sean then I will have no choice but to ban him/her

DJ · County player

Excellent executive decision; with you 100%.

Sheddie · administrator

Update:

James has spent the off season training in Mallorca with Toni Nadal...he was invited there to train for free, they think he's got potential !!!! He's starting the new season with two futures in Mallorca and then two in Portugal....he'll do the interview sometime in the next month

johnnylad · Tennis legend

Drew · Dec 31, 2007

Sheddie wrote:

Update:

James has spent the off season training in Mallorca with Toni Nadal...he was invited there to train for free, they think he's got potential !!!! He's starting the new season with two futures in Mallorca and then two in Portugal....he'll do the interview sometime in the next month

Toni is Rafa's uncle (Fathers brother) and has been with Rafa since he was 4 I think ? Just in case anyone was wondering.

Good piece on him :

HERE

imoen · Admin: Moderator+Tennis Legend

impressive from Ward! Lets hope the result is a rapid rise up the rankings

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Sheddie wrote:

Update:

James has spent the off season training in Mallorca with Toni Nadal...he was invited there to train for free, they think he's got potential !!!!

Also mentioned briefly by Neil Harman at the end of his report on Andy's match against Schüttler in today's Times (+ some incidental info on Boggo!):

And [Murray] is not the only British player listening to new voices. Brad Gilbert, Murray's erstwhile American coach, who remains on the LTA's books, is expected to fly to Melbourne to help Alex Bogdanovic, the British No 2, to attempt to qualify for the Australian Open and James Ward, a 21-year-old son of a London taxi driver ranked No 9 in Britain, spent part of the Christmas holiday training in Majorca with Toni Nadal, the uncle and coach of Rafael, the world No 2. The Spaniards think a lot of Ward, who trains at the Juan Carlos Ferrero Academy near Alicante, which is encouraging.

It seems reasonable to assume that Harman, too, sees James as one to watch, since he was also responsible for the profile published last April.

johnnylad · Tennis legend

Hope he lives up to all this talk!

That paragraph on Ward is regurgitated from an old article written when he got the wildcard for Valencia Atp, with the bit about Toni Nadal tacked on.

But nice that its there agin!

Sheddie · administrator

Wouldn't be surprised if Harman got that info directly from this thread given that James has been training there for several weeks now and the news appeared in the Times the day after I posted it

johnnylad · Tennis legend

Excitement about Ward's first tournament of the season is growing!