Well, the prize money at Sutton last week was £700-ish for runners-up and well over £1000 for the winner. It's pretty big money. (£350-ish for semis and £135 or so for QFs). Way bigger than they'd get for similar level results in 10ks. (Although, yes, quite easy to spend if hotels come into it).

In the semis,

Emily A def. Ema Lazic 6-2 6-4

Mollie Crouch def. Emily Smith 6-3 6-4

 

NB Emily Smith is the smart lass who has got a full scholarship to Rice University - top drawer academic uni and one of the top tennis ones too.

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Friday 20th of February 2015 08:33:59 PM

First of all, I just wanted to say what a great site this is and also a very important one.
As for the British Tour and working in performance as I do, I am really worried about the future. With the new prize money, we now have only 14 'real' money events. Grade 2 events will blend into grade 3 junior events. (check how many ranked players bother to play grade 2 events this year).
The British Tour (and Futures/10ks) is vital to the strength and depth of the player base. France has 250 money tournaments above the level of grade 1 events and up to around 15000 euros!
Germany and Italy have similar tours (the Italians transformed their fortunes with their new tournament structure around 10 or so years ago).

I see people on here debate whether senior players deserve to be given prize money when they have little chance of reaching the top 100/200. Think about it this way, imagine if there were no players in the UK between juniors and 200 ATP. Juniors need these players to compete against to develop, the more the better.

Now imagine the alternate situation. What would happen if we had the strongest money tour in Europe, the most ITF, Tennis Europe, futures and 10ks events. Well, the first thing would be that half of Europe would relocate here. This may sound a bad thing, but the French tournaments are full of foreign players. The last time I played German League, there were over 700 non Germans with German rankings just to play team tennis (I'm sure its more by now). In Barcelona they used to boast that you could compete every week of the year up to 200 in the world without having to travel more than 20km. When I was there a while ago academies were closing down which they were blaming on the decreasing number of events. (as a prospective customer, when you talk to Spanish academies and ask them why there are so many players in Spain, what do you think they will tell you?)

What I am trying to say is that in my experience over the last 20 years opportunity is far more effective than direct funding.

Welcome Otto. Valid points ans well made. I think most on here can see some sort of logic to changing funding as results haven't been what was hoped for . But all we are reading is cuts to funding. I am very unclear as to where this saved money will be spent as an alrenative support path???

Some great points, Otto.

In the final,

Emily Arbuthnott def. Mollie Crouch 4-6 6-3 7-5

At the Tipton Tier 1 (which seems somewhat lower in level than the recent Sutton one), Beth Askew is top seed, with Lucy Brown also playing (whihc is nice to see) and Hillyer and Crouch as 3 and 4.

Jazzi Plews seems down to play in the Q draw, which would be the first time I've seen her name properly around for ages (nasty injuries that poor girl had . . )

Ah ... But Emily Smith is what might be termed a 'dangerous floater' in a draw such as this!!  As she does not have a professional ranking, her seeding (or lack of it) is based upon her domestic rating.  This, of course, has not risen recently as she has been based at Soto whereas the ratings of her countrywomen have been largely increasing during the same period.

-- Edited by The Optimist on Friday 27th of February 2015 02:30:37 PM

Lucy concedes a walkover - hope she's OK. Title to Beth.