Nope. No 1 seed in qualifying Kimer Coppejans WR 98

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Friday 26th of June 2015 01:29:00 PM

Liam has a decent draw but would be better placed and competition ready if he had battled through qualifiers. Similarly James and Brydan, Kyle has a chance deserves his wild card after his performances in Paris and Melbourne where he has won through and particularly in Paris struggled to progress because of the efforts made in getting there. He should enjoy the challenge.

I'm getting increasingly conflicted re wild cards, while I would like to see the players get the funding and it is effectively lost if not allocated to a Brit, but it is evident that in the balance of probabilities unless they get very favourable draws they are going to get thumped and not accumulate any ranking points.

There is definitely a case for a reciprocal arrangement with other GS, so we select the one or two players on the cusp of or most like to gain from GS participation. Wild cards have completely distorted the presses understanding and reporting of any positive achievements of any of our players. As they choose to ignore or don't understand the context.

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Friday 26th of June 2015 02:02:45 PM

Yes I agree decent draw for Liam and Aljaz. Klein has a chance and well Ward has been quite lucky with draws over the years think this is the first time he's drawn a top seed. When you think of the WC draws Boggo had in Nadal etc and the abuse he took from the press for failing. Even Smethurst last year getting Isner was worse than anything James has had.

goldenboy wrote:

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Rotten draw for james

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If Kuznetsov can put out Ferrer (2014), so can Ward. As my old coach used to say, 'Never be afraid of the No 8 seed'.

 

On the press issue the players must realise the score. If the press see the vast majority of our players are getting in on the back of a wild card (which they are very quick to accept - and I understand the reasons why they may do that) year after year after year, lose and get well rewarded for it then it is inevitable that they are going to ask well what is going on here. The focus of the sport, as everyone knows, is at its highest when Wimbledon is on, particularly for British Tennis so you can't expect the press to ignore this. In Boggo's case, it may not have been that he took flak just because he lost to Nadal but perhaps a combination of things - the fact that they were he was receiving a wild card, year after year, losing year after year, getting well rewarded year after year, making no significant improvement in the rankings year after year between each Wimbledon and generally never having once earned the right to be there or got in on merit. I know its not nice to take flak from the press but until we start getting more players in on merit or coming through qualifying, I suspect not much will change.

It's not just a bunch of typical British players this year though, is it? There's quite a varied mix, what with a couple of relative outsiders, a pair of young guns, established members of the old brigade (Ward, Murray). It's not a group of unknown, LTA-subsidised ducks sitting in a row, so not such an easy target for the press.