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

steven · Tennis legend

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

Sim · County player

TMH wrote:
Unless I'm mistaken, Kyle has played a tie-break in all four of his matches, and won all four. That's mighty impressive.

And his tie-break record for 2015 is 5-1 only 1 loss to Propoggia in AO qualies

Oakland2002 · All-time great

I'm pretty certain Kyle won't charge up the rankings quite as quickly as he could as he undoubtedly he will start playing ATP 250 Qualifiers with a view to further development and transitioning as the long term aim is to be a force in GS tennis. I don't think optimizing points accrual will be part of the strategy. If of course he starts going deep in 250 s and winning the early rounds of slams the points will stack up regardless. The futures bright but still anticpate a few hiccups regardless

BeefyDeedz · Pro player

Kyle's great performance in January has opened the first half of his year up, essentially. It would of course be great to gain enough points to push for top-100 in the second half of the year, but on a developmental level, having just 7 (gone if he wins the final) points to defend until June means that any ATP qualifiers that he stumbles over shouldn't affect him as much.

EddietheEagle · County player

KyleM wrote:
@EddieTheEagle
The current world number 100, Marcel Ilhan, has approximately 555 points. He has won one challenger (gaining 100 points), reached 2 other finals and gained a total of 125 points for those two and four other semi final earning him an extra 170 points. Those seven results account for over 70% of his points and less than half of his countable results. He has not reached the second round of any ATP tour tournament.
He shows it is definitely possible to reach the top 100 off of challenger events only, however obviously more points are available at ATP events so in theory they could climb the rankings faster but will also play tougher opposition meaning it may take longer playing those events. Right now, Kyle needs to find the right the balance of playing Challengers and ATP qualies and only he will know what that balance is.

-- Edited by KyleM on Friday 30th of January 2015 07:46:36 PM

Thanks Kyle and TMH.

Is there any received wisdom on this? How does an aspiring pro optimise his development at this stage? Is a dash for a higher ranking necessarily a bad thing?

Presumably, development-wise, the nub of it is that a player is learning to cope and hold his own in faster, heavier exchanges i.e staying in higher speed rallies, keeping error rates under control etc.

I seem to remember Richard Gasquet's father dropping his son a tournament level at one point very early on. An apparent problem of confidence, I think, but I may be wrong.

Jan · Hall of fame

emmas wrote:

well done Kyle and good luck in the final ......

ditto!

indiana · Tennis legend

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.

RJA · Hall of fame

Some nice solid results for Kyle this week although we should probably keep in mind that he hasn't played anyone inside the top 150 and his SF win came with a huge slice of help from some very poor officiating.

Win or lose, the final will probably be a better indication of where his game is.

greatunclebulgaria · Lower Club Player

good strong start, serve needs work

greatunclebulgaria · Lower Club Player

1st set 6-1 in just under half hour

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Ito feeling the full force of the Pocklington Tornado . I don't think this is going to karst long. Kyle serving for the set 5-1 up. Ouch

greatunclebulgaria · Lower Club Player

he's destroying Ito, serve fully functional now

greatunclebulgaria · Lower Club Player

5-2 second set serving for it

greatunclebulgaria · Lower Club Player

bit nervy towards the end but pulled through 6-1 6-2 lets hope this is just the start to a great day

freerider · Futures level

Bob in Spain wrote:
freerider wrote:
Bob in Spain wrote:
Oh dear. This is bad news as it means I may have to pull an all-nighter tonight. Kyle's final at 2am Brazilian time followed by Muzza at 5.30am. Kedders - Stop it. I need my sleep.

Seriously though, another really good result. Not only has he reached his second consecutive Challenger final, but he has reached this one without dropping a set. Obviously, Ito will be a step up in levels for the final, but with Kyle playing well, anything is possible.
On the plus side at least they shouldn't clash!

Edmund obviously read this and thought he'd get it over with quickly so you could get a quick 40 winks in before murray!!

Seriously well done to Kyle, big week and signs of hopefully more to come! (hopefully more of the same next week)