Week 4 - Challenger ($50,000) - Hong Kong - Hard

indiana · Tennis legend

RE: Week 4 - Challenger ($50,000) - Hong Kong - Hard

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Think it's Trotman, Indy.

Brilliant week, Kyle.

(and hope you're feeling better, Priesty).

Spaced · Lower Club Player

Great result! And by the sound of it a very comfortable performance. Considering his points position I can see him being top 100 by Wimbledon.

emma · Strong Club Player

Congratulations Kyle. excellent result and well deserved. you must be feeling really good right now. hope this is the first title of many for you.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

On today's performance I would consider Kenny De Schepper fare game, there is little difference between him and Ito, a good performance at the time as Kyle was only 18. On today's form I think we would be considering top 40 as major scalps. Regardless a great day for Kyle

Helen40 · Grand Slam Champion

41 in the race -rapt for him

Madeline · Admin:Moderator + Tennis Legend

Brilliant news - though I knew the result much earlier, I have only just got to the computer after watching the tv. This cheers me up after Andy's loss! Good luck in Burnie, Kyle.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Oakland2002 wrote:
On today's performance I would consider Kenny De Schepper fare game, there is little difference between him and Ito, a good performance at the time as Kyle was only 18. On today's form I think we would be considering top 40 as major scalps. Regardless a great day for Kyle

Never been too impressed by Kenny (although he's no slouch, obviously). Didn't really start playing the tour until he was 22 or so (take note, LTA, although Kenny wasn't funded either so maybe it works . . .)

He's definitely quite playable, especially if the serve is not quite firing.

emma · Strong Club Player

nice to see Kyle next to John Millman and Benoit Paire on the live rankings at no. 148.

edit: wasn't quite what I meant

-- Edited by emmas on Sunday 1st of February 2015 01:42:17 PM

Jan · Hall of fame

Great - very well done Kyle!

indiana · Tennis legend

Ha Ha very good win though it was at the time for Kyle, I did rather assume that Oakland was thinking rather more premium "premium scalps" than Kenny De Schepper.

RJA · Hall of fame

indiana wrote:
ATP qualifiers, Challengers ... fine as long as part of a strategy - eg. Liam's apparent Challenger onto a block of ATP tour qualifying

Many doubts around here during the first half of last year were some of us struggling to see the strategy for Kyle and didn't see that development was aided at that time by taking seemingly fairly random ATP tour WCs and an ATP Masters WC. He ended up with a pretty eclectic mix of tournaments, with months of relatively few ranking points and more importantly not very many matches at an important stage. That seemed more important then than 'exposing' him to the higher echelons. I struggled to see what he was gaining, though maybe his agent did, hmm ...

As it happens, a year down the line to me such a foray would now make rather more sense, he is more ready, but still as part of his ongoing development within a challenger / ATP qualifying development.

Things are looking really good now, long may it continue with hopefully good people around him.

In a funny way I think last year will have a been a big benefit to Kyle, not so much for the what he learnt about tennis but for what he learnt about life. To my mind he obviously made some very poor choices, probably based on the advice of others but still his choices. The really encouraging thing is that he seemed to learn from his mistakes and correct them quickly. Sacking Rusedski after just a few months working together cannot have been an easy decision given how the LTA and the media had lauded the appointment.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

I agree. I though Kyle sounded very 'adult' when he said, a while back, one has to make one's own choices and stand by them.

Never easy to fire a high-profile, 'famous' guy. Lot of pressure. He did well. And it'll stand him in good stead.

indiana · Tennis legend

Yes, certainly encouraging that Kyle showed the strength to make the decision to basically fire Greg.

And given how Liam has clearly had to make some big life choices for his tennis ( and from the outside, what these choices have been ) we seem to have two rather impressive and fairly single minded young men to follow as they hopefully help push each other on.

BeefyDeedz · Pro player

After looking in detail at Kyle's schedule in the first half of 2014, I would probably agree both that the planning of Kyle's season was poor and that it may well have helped him in some ways. Doing so well in those first tournaments (three Futures) only to be stopped dead at Marseille ATP must've killed all momentum, explaining his lack of points gain until just after Wimbledon. I understand Miami to an extent, but I think that the second half of his season was a clear success regarding his constant run of 12 challengers, despite it containing his worst run of form in 5 consecutive losses.