Week 8 - Challenger (€42,500) - Cherbourg, France (hard)

paulisi · Tennis legend

RE: Week 8 - Challenger (€42,500) - Cherbourg, France (hard)

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

A full house of defeats for the Brits in qualies:

QR2: Maxime Teixeira (FRA) WR 401 defeated (q1) Ed Corrie WR 251 by 5-7 6-2 7-5

RJA · Hall of fame

Well that certainly counts as a rather disappointing weekend.

Mark1968 · Intermediate Club Player

Does anyone know why Smethurst and Corrie are not playing doubles, their ranking would have been high enough to get them in here, it seems worthwhile as they are both there! I know they have not played together for a long time after having a successful partnership last year, has there being a falling out??

British_is_Best · County player

Not seen it posted in this format yet:

R32: Liam Broady WR 182 v Andrea Arnaboldi (ITA) WR 210

British_is_Best · County player

A decent draw. Arnaboldi has made the slightly strange choice to play indoor European challengers over clay and has compiled a 1-3 record in them, including a defeat to Dan Smethurst in Glasgow.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Disappointing only in that the results didn't pan out, although I see a complete change in the level of expectation of our top 10 players after Andy who this season are really giving challenger tennis a crack. We will get a truer understanding of how UK tennis has progressed over the last few years by next December.

That I think is a real step forward for the group that entered this weekends qualifiers, if one or two of this 24 year old plus cohort can push along with Kyle and Liam into the top 150 fantastic.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

I applaud your optimism, Oakland, and the fact that the guys are giving Challengers a go, but I think the results were really poor.

And it's nothing to do with the level of expectation. They all lost to 10k future players.

Dan S lost in 2 sets to a guy ranked 400+ whom he thrashed last year (and who only beat George Morgan in a third set TB - which is no insult to Morgan but . . .).

Ed and Josh lost to a Frenchman who is, admittedly, playing above his ranking (and used to be ranked higher) but is still, net net, only a 400+ player and had a pretty poor year last year.

And Luke lost to a guy I've no idea about but is obviously mainly a doubles player now, and ranked 800+ in singles, only playing singles to accompany his doubles.

Shhh · Challenger level

Apart from Liam and Kyle pulling away at the top, the first few weeks haven't looked strong for our players. There are less tournaments and as we know, less funding meaning a few have quit. Even so, it seems noticeable on this forum how much less there is to follow at present???

indiana · Tennis legend

Personally, I am still fairly optimistic re the GB no 5 to 11 group, though always difficult to match Oakland :) Not having a great time but I have hopes at least one or two will significantly push forward this year.

Then we have Dave Rice, as GB no 12, currently dropping into that twilight zone between GB nos 11 and 13 ( these outside the top 500 ). For whatever reasons he is right out of form, I hope he can find some answers.

For me a big concern is these outside the top 500. With Norrie and Gosea at college there is otherwise just relatively so little apparent general progress being made and there must be a fear that we could lose quite a number of these players. Evo, of course, easily has the ability to surge forward again, Tom F maybe but plays so sparingly on tour, otherwise ...

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Don't get me wrong I am not overly optimistic but just philosophical. I really hope a couple of the 5-11 cohort will drive forward and achieve success at the challenger level, I don't feel there should be a mechanism to fund players into their mid twenties playing the futures tour. If you have the means all well and good or clubs sponsor their professionals/coaches to compete etc... Or we can develop a national club league with an element of professionalism etc... Or even better a production line of elite junior coaches, ie players who reach 300 in the world at 25 haven't failed, I mean at one stage they were the 300 th best at tennis worldwide!! The system just has to use their skills differently.

I feel really strongly loads of kids shouldn't sacrifice their education to be the one and once one potential has been established realistic career advice given.

To draw an analogy I can't really see the point of Welsh football clubs entering the champions league unless one is realistic about the objective which may be to drum up local support, improve the profile etc... But if you expect them to win it you will be disappointed. We will occasionally produce a Barcelona, Swansea City and Leyton Orient but you will also develop the likes of Cray Valley Papermill FC, the standard is high but the fan base small to be sustainable and the players make their money elsewhere.

Those who have the potential should be given a real crack and robustly supported and some years we may not have any players with the capability of making top 150 but it is what it is. College players excelling should have the opportunity to drop out at 20/21 and again a crack at the ATP tour facilitated.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

R1: (4) Ken Skupski & Neal Skupski CR 230 (115+115) defeated Maxime Authom & Niels Desein (BEL/BEL) CR 801 (417+384) by 2 & 4

Looks as though the boys could just be rediscovering a bit of their va-va-voom! smile They'd've wrapped it up more quickly if they hadn't handed back an early break in the fifth game of the second set!

paulisi · Tennis legend

Liam is on the evening session tonight and I assume it will be streamed.

Just on a side note, quite a few tournaments put on an evening session, but other than the ATP tour finals I don't ever recall it in the UK. Any reason why? It shouldn't be that difficult for indoor events.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

paulisi wrote:
Liam is on the evening session tonight and I assume it will be streamed.

It is going to be a late one though. It is approaching 7pm local time and Mahut's match has only just finished. There are another two matches to play before Liam gets on court.

indiana · Tennis legend

Just updating rankings :

L32 : Liam Broady WR 181 vs Andrea Arnaboldi (ITA) WR 203 ( CH 165 06/14 )