Judging from tweets that were going around today, Neal and Ken will be playing doubles here as well.

A1 tennis academy wrote:

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Shame that Dan & Marcus in same section . Due to a win against coxy but not a good match up for Marcus. 

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Do hope that Marcus has committed (mentally, to himself) to play 5 or 6 challengers/ATP qualies whatever - i.e. not one or two over four or five months.

There's always the luck of the draw, minor illnesses whatever - you can't just count on one tournament, you've got to give yourself a chance and enter several. You've got to be in it to win it, as they say.

 started to work more closely with Marcus which is also helping my fitness 

 Marcus is steadily improving irrespective of the results in St Brieuc I am confident that marcus will end the year on 

new singles PB  he's working extremely hard and I  am sure results will eventually follow 

Bob in Spain wrote:

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Bob in Spain wrote:

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Judging from tweets that were going around today, Neal and Ken will be playing doubles here as well.

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Cancel that. Today's tweet is that Ken is going but will be partnering Andreas Beck.  Hoping Neal isn't injured, or if he is, that it isn't too serious.

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 Neal's out Stateside, I read a tweet about hiring cars, so I'm guessing Ken's going to join him shortly.

Yes, agree would like to see Marcus getting in a good run of challenger level or even ATP qualifying.

Hopefully he can then get results and start pushing that far too low ranking ( for his ability and potential ) up. But does need actions much more than words.

Post the grass season a strategy moving on would seem very much connected to his then ranking, so again results in the next two or three months would be very useful. If, however, he required to return to futures that too would need approached as a challenge to get wins and points to get that ranking up so he could get back to a bigger stage.

paulisi wrote:

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Marcus needs a consistent run of points whether that be at challenger or 15k, so he doesn't need to risk challenger qualifying where there is no prize money or points for a dodgy draw.

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But money isn't a problem as such for Marcus. A1 has generously seen to that. So the whole point is that he can focus purely on his career as opposed to trying to make ends meet.

Of course, some nice points in 15ks would be good. But he's been doing 10 and 15ks for ages now, it doesn't raise the bar (see Cavaday's excellent point about the bad habits and 'laziness' it engenders) and if you get a bad loss (which of course you will somewhere along the line) it really knocks your confidence because you're now a failed 10/15 k player. Dodgy draws come everywhere.

Challenger qualifying is where he has to be (with a bit of convenient other tournaments thrown in)

Absolutely agree with CD. No point hanging about in futures trying to pick up easy points. Take a chance and push on.