S.T.E.V.E.N.

emma · Strong Club Player

S.T.E.V.E.N.

indiana · Tennis legend

emma wrote:

Can't disagree with that, Emma

blob · All-time great

indiana wrote:
emma wrote:

Can't disagree with that, Emma

To be fair, still a better contribution than >99% of mine.

indiana · Tennis legend

Week 18 Titles :

( All ) Men's Doubles

ATP 250 Millennium Open, Estoril, Portugal
Kyle Edmund & Cameron Norrie

ATP TEB BNP Paribas Cup, Istanbul, Turkey
Dominic Inglot ( & Robert Lindstedt, SWE )

ATP Challenger $75K, Savannah, GA, USA
Luke Bambridge ( & Akira Santillan, AUS )

steven · Tennis legend

Hi everyone! Apologies for worrying people (again) and thanks to Bob for getting in touch in April. I can't believe another month has raced by already.

Emma can rest assured that she is not an unlucky charm, let alone that she has scared me off - indeed, those couple of days at Roehampton and SW19 with her were some of my best tennis memories of 2016. (if I've mixed up forum nicknames and this makes no sense, Emma, please ignore me!)

I've been silent on Twitter because I was starting to feel like I should put any free 'tennis time' into getting the GB top 25 tables going again, because tweeting meaningful stats about the Brits becomes more difficult without them. It takes a fair bit longer to restart them than it does when I'm creating one week's table from another and all the background information is up to date - I've got close a number of times only for yet another obstacle to get in the way and by the time each obstacle was out of the way again, I'd missed the boat for that week and had to start on the next one instead.

Some of those of you who know me 'irl' will know that I've had a chronic pain problem for since I was 26. I manage it as well as possible but sometimes, it flares up to the extent that I have to drastically cut back on what I'm doing. For the first 2-3 months after I got back from the US, the flare-ups were happening a lot more often than usual. It was partly the journey back, no doubt - I can only fly if I can lie down on the flight, so have to fly eye-wateringly expensive business class or save up 30,000 Avios, which explains why my flights to and from the US were my first times in the air for nearly a quarter of a century (!), but even then, the other components of the journey take a while to recover from. I also had builders in the house for most of January (a water main burst in the loft while I was away, destroying the interior of most of the back half of the house and, despite having had a completely empty house to work on for 7 months, they still hadn't got close to finishing), which made it impossible to relax, which in turn made it even harder to recover.

The Chinese exams Bob mentioned are a bit of a red herring - they hardly took up any time at all and were quite easy, though it was nice to get them, especially when I realised that a couple of years ago, I probably wouldn't have been able to get *any* of the answers right except by pure guesswork! I've been learning Chinese on my own but wanted to see how my body stood up to doing the two levels below where I'm probably really at so that I could plan (see if I'd need to ask for breaks, between sections or if it was ok to bring my own keyboard for the computer-based elements, etc - stuff like that) for the longer one I want to take later in the year. However, having intended to take them without doing any specific revision, I semi-panicked the evening before each one and decided I would do some quick revision after all, and both times it was either that or do the following week's T25 tables.

Things were improving in April and I nearly got a table up, only to come down with the worst bout of flu I can remember, which kept me in bed for days and took me out for a couple of weeks overall, with a backlog of stuff to deal with afterwards. I have also been trying to do some other stuff, both things that I have to sort out before I can even think about rejoining my wife in the US and, on the positive side, things I want to do while I'm here that I've realised are much, much harder to do in the US, especially when flying or spending more than 10-15 minutes at a time in a car are too painful.

Transport issues aside, I really liked it in Richmond - we were just around the corner from the Virginia Capitol and it was possible to do lots just by walking - there were very few days when I didn't walk at least 5 miles, even when it was 30C+, which happens quite often there between May and October. I'm missing the heat now!

The list of other things that have happened when I've finally had a chance to sit down and work on the tables would read a bit like a Laurel and Hardy script (e.g. one time recently, I spotted a mouse out of the corner of my eye just after sitting down - quite common for them to get in through new gaps when there's been extensive building work, apparently ...)

Anyway, I've given up risking saying anything that could be construed as a promise re. the tables but things have calmed down a bit now (famous last words ...) and once I've finished working on the article mentioned in the next post, I should be able to work on the tables again.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

WooHoo. Welcome back Steven. It's been too long.

indiana · Tennis legend

Excuses, excuses

Great to hear from you Steven. Anything you do here will be great but that should come well after keeping yourself as well as possible and dealing with these things you have to deal with. Take care.

steven · Tennis legend

Further to the last post, it's now time for me to ask for a little bit of help.

Some of you may remember that back in February, I was asked to write an article on the lower-ranked Brits for a magazine (Tennishead) - we negotiated something mutually satisfactory so I did so I'm not sure any of you have seen it yet - it's on pp 106-7 but I get the feeling that tennis fans read print media or inhabit the Internet or neither, but very few do both!

I was allowed to mention the site too, which makes it even more frustrating that I haven't been able to keep the T25 tables up to date, though the two things are indirectly linked, since in hindsight, writing the article used up my only really extended piece of 'tennis time' in the first quarter.

They've asked me to do another article for their pre-Wimbledon issue, which I've been working on this weekend. Having thought the articles wouldn't be too difficult to do because I'd have absorbed much of the required info automatically through doing the tables and through Twitter, it's become slightly more tricky without having done the tables! I've still been keeping half an eye on what's been going on (even more than that in the weeks I was still tweeting) but not such a close eye as I normally would.

I've only got a page to fill (fewer words than my previous post, though obviously I need to put many times as much effort into the articles), so last time I chose three players to concentrate on (Cam, Liam and Katie B), who pretty much picked themselves for the period under consideration, and gave honourable mentions to a few others.

This time, I'm concentrating on Gabi and the other 25K girls (though not Katie Swan, who has an article to herself elsewhere in the issue), plus Jay, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anyone really obvious (both to avoid looking stupid and to avoid the player concerned feeling unfairly overlooked), beyond anyone who's obvious from Indiana's weekly title-winner lists or from a huge Feb-May rankings move. It's possible I've overlooked one or two players who have been getting better than usual results, e.g. in Challengers, without winning multiple titles, and who deserve at least honourable mentions.

I'm only supposed to be writing about players who don't regularly play on the main tour (i.e. nobody in or close to the top 100 unless they were well outside it in Feb - e.g. Cam was just 'eligible' last time but wouldn't be any more) and, given the space constraints, I can only really try to cover singles - mainly at senior level, though I did mention Aidan's AO junior run last time. The period covered is from just after the DC tie until now.

So, please feel free to throw the odd name at me and you might save me the embarrassment of missing out someone obvious whose success slipped past me in the odd weeks that, in tennis terms, passed me by altogether. Thank you!

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

I can't vote against any of your choices. They seem the most logical/obvious to focus on at the moment.

One question I would ask however, is whether this article is about people who are on the verge of the break through to the top level, or is it more a personal perspective from people pounding the beat of the futures tour. Graham Howe would make an interesting story and given his recent book, you would have plenty of material to work from. Not really appropriate though if this is an "update" on recent progress since the DC tie.

The "Billy Mobile" story might be another option on the men's side that could make an interesting read.

steven · Tennis legend

Thanks Bob. It's supposed to be both but obviously it's hard to find room to say much about the Futures players when the Challenger level players are doing so well - something that wouldn't have been an issue a few years ago, but I'm glad it is now! I am definitely interested in telling some of the Futures players' stories but it may require an (unwanted) lull in Challenger success for Futures players to become the main focus.

Billy was one of those who got an honourable mention for a huge rankings rise last time and I'm hoping to be able to justify making him one of the main features at some point (if they ask me to write any more of these), since like you, I love his story.

Re. Greg's book - the articles are meant to be about play in the last 3 months but I was already intending to see if the editor will let me at least mention the book this time, maybe with a view to me or someone else doing a separate review next time. There's a very obvious "You can find out more about what happens at the lower levels of professional tennis in "Chasing Points," an entertaining new book by Gregory Howe ..." sentence to be written (by which I mean, shortened and made to sound a bit less boring) that wouldn't seem out of place in the article. Once I'm back to tweeting, I'm hoping to drum up some interest for him there too but I want to actually read it first (it's arriving tomorrow) so that anything I say about it is fairly accurate.

-- Edited by steven on Monday 14th of May 2018 12:44:40 AM

Strongbow · All-time great

Good to see you back smile

indiana · Tennis legend

Certainly the 25K girls ( Katie B, Gabi, Harriet, Katy D and Katie S ) have, apart from Kyle, been the GB story of the year to date. I realise there is the other article on Katie S but she is certainly part of a very encouraging quintet.

As it happens they are all at CHs on 14/05 and Katie S will leap into the top 250 on 21/05 when her Spain 25K title adds.

Katie B ( WR/CH 152, race 126 ), 60K and 25K title this year.
Gabi ( WR/CH 171, race 96 ), 3 x 25K titles this year.
Harriet ( WR/CH 194, race 147 ), 25K title this year.
Katy D ( WR/CH 219, race 165 )
Katie S ( WR/CH 288, race 257 ), 25K title this year.

Plus other finals, good runs and doubles successes.

So good topic and be great to see Harriet get a mention.

Re Wimbledon there have been encouraging grass performances in the last year or two from within that group and with all having advanced as they have this year it will be very interesting.

paulisi · Tennis legend

Great to see you are back Steven.
Harriet Dart is the one who has sneaked under the radar in the top girls. Boys are not doing much other than our top three juniors - Aidan, George and Jack who are just starting to climb the rankings.

Julia Carrot · All-time great

Oh what a lovely surprise to see your posts here this morning Steven !

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

As per the others, super to read that all is well (or pretty much well) !

And, yes, agree with paulisi, Harriet is the one you might want to add - I've always been a fan, she plays well on grass, she may well get a doubles MD wildcard too....