National Championships

Born2WinTennis · Club Coach

National Championships

paulisi · Tennis legend

It stopped as players were chasing ranking points.

I'm not sure it will work properly unless there is a large incentive to play.

Born2WinTennis · Club Coach

What would you imagine a large incentive is? The incentive for an 8.1 like me differs considerably from an incentive for a 2.1

I personally don't care about ranking points because I don't have anywhere near the time available to compete in 3 (or more) day tournaments, like the majority of the tennis playing public in the UK.

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

There's a very well-established and well-run postal event for adults covering the Greater London area - The London Parks Trophy. Finals are usually held at NTC with umpires (and ball-kids from Wimbledon being given a final trial run). There's some really spectacular silverware to be won (event is approx 100 yo and original cups still around).

However, given the number of tennis-playing adults in the area covered, and given that it's reasonably well-promoted, entries are really remarkably small. The matches do count for domestic rating runs and domestic ranking points.

I wish you well with the venture, but do not see it being overwhelmingly popular. Most adults (without pro ambitions) seem to prefer to play team tennis or club ladders than open events. I guess there's much more of a social element to those kind of matches and the social side is why most adults do sport (as opposed to exercise).

Otto · Social player

paulisi wrote:
It stopped as players were chasing ranking points.

I'm not sure it will work properly unless there is a large incentive to play.

Senior Nationals stopped because it became an embarrassment for the LTA, as the draws (after Tim and Greg felt they had done their duty), were full of teenagers and

ex-players/coaches turning up for the money (9k for the winner, the last time I was there).

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

great idea, Born2Win, and pretty much exactly what happens in France. Although it's run by the federation and there's no prize money at all (prestige and ranking points is all you get, but the prestige helps get you sponsorship, of course).

County championships are run at county level (quelle surprise). There are two open categories. Also, thousands of senior categories. The draws are progressive so the 10.2s (equivalent) come in against other 10.2s and then play a 10.1 and the winner then plays a 10 etc. etc. (and go up to 8 or so). The next category is 7.2 to 5 or so etc. etc., as you indicate. (The better ranked guys start directly at regional level, in their own category, and the best ranked players have their own direct national level).

For the lower two bands, each county produces one winner who goes forward to the regional championship (the bigger counties put forward two or three, depending on demographics). And the winner of each regional goes through to the nationals. (There's a cup at each level and a prize-giving, and write-up in the paper, but nothing more. However, the federation give extra ranking points for the championships, over and above a normal torunament).

Born2WinTennis · Club Coach

The Optimist wrote:
There's a very well-established and well-run postal event for adults covering the Greater London area - The London Parks Trophy. Finals are usually held at NTC with umpires (and ball-kids from Wimbledon being given a final trial run). There's some really spectacular silverware to be won (event is approx 100 yo and original cups still around).
However, given the number of tennis-playing adults in the area covered, and given that it's reasonably well-promoted, entries are really remarkably small. The matches do count for domestic rating runs and domestic ranking points.
I wish you well with the venture, but do not see it being overwhelmingly popular. Most adults (without pro ambitions) seem to prefer to play team tennis or club ladders than open events. I guess there's much more of a social element to those kind of matches and the social side is why most adults do sport (as opposed to exercise).

Yes I'm aware of the London Parks event, didn't realise it was 100 years old though, wow. That would be the true meaning of "postal" before the days of text messages, email and gps enabled apps. Some counties have now introduced men's open events in to their annual closed county championships to try and encourage local competition, however these had fairly low entries last year too. I think there is scope to improve the entry levels though, since 10-20 years ago our adult competition scene was much more lively and nearly every club hosted an open tournament. Now you are lucky if there are 4-5 clubs hosting tournaments in each county and it's overwhelmingly juniors only.

I think your point around team tennis or club ladders being social is a major factor for the huge gap in 18-35 years old playing tennis. The UK participation figures show a huge drop off in this age range, guys who want to play competitively but are never going to be world beaters, simply don't have the opportunities available. At a local club, singles-wise, you might have an internal ladder (that the best players don't bother with), aegon team tennis (only 5 matches a year) and a club championships. No where near enough opportunities for competitive singles in my opinion, but until the 18-35 year participation curve grows, then clubs don't and won't have to do anything about it.

Born2WinTennis · Club Coach

Otto wrote:
paulisi wrote:
It stopped as players were chasing ranking points.

I'm not sure it will work properly unless there is a large incentive to play.
Senior Nationals stopped because it became an embarrassment for the LTA, as the draws (after Tim and Greg felt they had done their duty), were full of teenagers and
ex-players/coaches turning up for the money (9k for the winner, the last time I was there).

Wow 9k for the winner, surely that would attract everyone bar Murray and Ward in current terms. As long as it was in a week where there was no GB Pro Series or nearby futures.

I know the guy who used to run it and he said one of the biggest headaches was all the admin from the county qualifying tournaments and he would often have to go down to 5th placed qualifier to find someone willing to travel to Telford.

Born2WinTennis · Club Coach

Coup Droit wrote:
great idea, Born2Win, and pretty much exactly what happens in France. Although it's run by the federation and there's no prize money at all (prestige and ranking points is all you get, but the prestige helps get you sponsorship, of course).

County championships are run at county level (quelle surprise). There are two open categories. Also, thousands of senior categories. The draws are progressive so the 10.2s (equivalent) come in against other 10.2s and then play a 10.1 and the winner then plays a 10 etc. etc. (and go up to 8 or so). The next category is 7.2 to 5 or so etc. etc., as you indicate. (The better ranked guys start directly at regional level, in their own category, and the best ranked players have their own direct national level).

For the lower two bands, each county produces one winner who goes forward to the regional championship (the bigger counties put forward two or three, depending on demographics). And the winner of each regional goes through to the nationals. (There's a cup at each level and a prize-giving, and write-up in the paper, but nothing more. However, the federation give extra ranking points for the championships, over and above a normal torunament).

Thanks for that info. Our idea wouldn't be a progressive draw it would simply be a group of players in each band. Say we have ten players in the (10.2 - 8.1) section. They would all arrange to play each other in a round robin league format (much like my own county singles leagues). So actually the winners may not be the best players but those who are most keen and have played the most matches. One guy might have played 3 and won 3, but another guy could have played 9 and won 4.

EddietheEagle · County player

Why does our Aegon Team Tennis seem to compare so poorly with German and French league tennis? Or am I mistaken and things have changed since Aegon jumped aboard? I remember playing occasional NCL matches over here where we often struggled to get a team together.

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

EddietheEagle wrote:
Why does our Aegon Team Tennis seem to compare so poorly with German and French league tennis? Or am I mistaken and things have changed since Aegon jumped aboard? I remember playing occasional NCL matches over here where we often struggled to get a team together.

The top level of European team tennis attracts sponsors and audiences so more cash about to pay high level players to compete. Aegon TT was improving at the top level in that there were good level prizes for clubs winning regional divisions, more for reaching the last 4, RU and W. This meant clubs could at the very least cover players expenses and often meant they could pay them a little for playing or simply divvy up the prize pot between the players if they reached that level.

However, the prizes have now been greatly reduces as the Aegon TT budget has been raided to provide funding for the Competition In The Parks initiative.

As always ..... comes down to cash

Born2WinTennis · Club Coach

I believe that is quite a poor decision, to redirect those funds as it was our flagship league. A huge 75% drop in prize money carried out by stealth with no communication. At the same time team entry fees move from £5 to £15 at county level, so for the 5000 teams they receive an extra £50k, whilst cutting £75k...nice!

EddietheEagle · County player

Not just the top level, certainly in Germany. I played for a 50+ side where our sponsor was putting in something like 20,000 euros a season for supporting three age group teams (50s 55s and 60s). If I won a match (rarely!) he'd open up his wallet.

Born2WinTennis · Club Coach

Here are the stats on Aegon Team Tennis club participation:

Approx. 200 of our 1,100 small clubs take part (1-3 courts)
Approx. 400 of our 800 medium clubs take part (4-7 courts)
Approx. 400 of our 450 large clubs take part (8+ courts)

One thing that is not apparent from these stats though is the large clubs may have only one team, while they have 6 or more doubles teams in county leagues.
Certainly the small clubs struggle to get 4 keen singles players together and willing to play on Sundays.

Born2WinTennis · Club Coach

The Optimist wrote:
EddietheEagle wrote:
Why does our Aegon Team Tennis seem to compare so poorly with German and French league tennis? Or am I mistaken and things have changed since Aegon jumped aboard? I remember playing occasional NCL matches over here where we often struggled to get a team together.
The top level of European team tennis attracts sponsors and audiences so more cash about to pay high level players to compete. Aegon TT was improving at the top level in that there were good level prizes for clubs winning regional divisions, more for reaching the last 4, RU and W. This meant clubs could at the very least cover players expenses and often meant they could pay them a little for playing or simply divvy up the prize pot between the players if they reached that level.
However, the prizes have now been greatly reduces as the Aegon TT budget has been raided to provide funding for the Competition In The Parks initiative.
As always ..... comes down to cash

Has any formal document or information been released about the Competition in the Parks initiative. I've heard it mentioned a few times but not seen anything concrete about what it actually involves yet. I'm offering free park leagues for mixed players rated 9.1-10.2 to encourage parks competition. Hopefully when a player reaches 8.2 they will then join my county leagues!