Week 24 - ATP 500 - Aegon Championships, The Queen's Club, London (grass) - doubles

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

RE: Week 24 - ATP 500 - Aegon Championships, The Queen's Club, London (grass) - doubles

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Bob in Spain wrote:
Disappointed to report that Neal was injured early in the match and was struggling to continue. His injury may keep him out for a period of time. Apparently, the court was damp and not really playable but the players were instructed to go out and play anyway.

Oh no! bleh Black mark against the Queen's powers that be. furious

Madadman · Masters Series Champion

Before even the rain hit Both Alex Ward and France's Tiafoe both slipped several times in their matches. So doesn't surprise that after the rain players were still slipping. I didn't wait after the rain for play to start again so didn't see any of the play to see if this was the case.

Spectator · All-time great

Stircrazy wrote:
Bob in Spain wrote:
Disappointed to report that Neal was injured early in the match and was struggling to continue. His injury may keep him out for a period of time. Apparently, the court was damp and not really playable but the players were instructed to go out and play anyway.
Oh no! Black mark against the Queen's powers that be.

Very much so. All the best to Neal (and Ken) - really hope he's better in good time.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Stircrazy wrote:
Bob in Spain wrote:
RJA wrote:
Bob in Spain wrote:
I still find it remarkably frustrating that a doubles team such as Ken/Neal (or even Guccione/Sa for that matter) has to qualify, when a pairing of Kyle/Aljaz (not disrespect to them) who have no intention of trying to earn a living out of doubles get directly into the MD. I would much rather see doubles WCs go to specialist doubles pairings.
Look Bob. It is bad enough that the members of Queen's have to put up with this awful annual invasion of their club in the first place but on top of that they have to put up with a brummie yob getting a main draw wild card. I really do think that further expecting them to tolerate the presence of scouse riff raff in the doubles main draw is pushing things too far.
I am guessing that this is intended to be a sarcastic p*** take out of Queens ?
That's how I read it, Bob.

I can be quite slow on the uptake sometimes

indiana · Tennis legend

Have players got any rights to refuse to play in certain conditions ? Male singles players apparently effectively refused to play at RG.

Does it have to be both players / pairs ?

No real rights at all, play when you're told to ?

-- Edited by indiana on Saturday 11th of June 2016 06:11:37 PM

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Bob in Spain wrote:
Disappointed to report that Neal was injured early in the match and was struggling to continue. His injury may keep him out for a period of time. Apparently, the court was damp and not really playable but the players were instructed to go out and play anyway.

Should add to this that the injury was caused by Neal slipping and falling on the damp court, on just the 5th point of the match.

Speedy recovery Neal. I really hope this doesn't mean that the brothers will miss Wimbledon. That would be a disaster for them.

Spectator · All-time great

Ken Skupski's twitter account suggests that he is (rightly) not a happy bunny.

sampras6642 · Improver

RJA , allthough you may be taking the piss there is plenty of truth in what u say about where we all come from. Its been a battle for 20 years and we are still fighting the good fight. Neal will be home tomorrow and we will get that injury sorted. The officials at Queens have probably never picked up a racket in their lives so have no idea about how this could effect your future career and the potential earnings. But we will keep going as we have done and not stop. I thank all you guys who are the most informed of what is going on in British Tennis. ie,Bob from Spain, Phil Wright, Spectator. As for the comments abount singles players playing doubles its a piss take they mess around and con the public as they have no interest in doubles. Its all about entertaining the paying public and thats not what they do, its a practice session.

-- Edited by sampras6642 on Saturday 11th of June 2016 07:48:08 PM

-- Edited by sampras6642 on Saturday 11th of June 2016 07:53:02 PM

-- Edited by sampras6642 on Saturday 11th of June 2016 08:03:47 PM

-- Edited by sampras6642 on Saturday 11th of June 2016 08:08:11 PM

indiana · Tennis legend

The lack of empathy here from officialdom regarding a match that no doubt mattered a very big deal to 'proper' doubles players trying to make a living and seize such chances as come along seems quite terrible. Other than keep the schedule really neat and hunky dory as they had planned, I imagine there was no absolute need to play this match on Saturday.

I am taking it that the answer re my earlier questions is that players do just have to play when instructed ?

Hoping for all the very best about Neal and it's not as bad as seems feared. Put in an awful position.

RJA · Hall of fame

sampras6642 wrote:
RJA , allthough you may be taking the piss there is plenty of truth in what u say about where we all come from. Its been a battle for 20 years and we are still fighting the good fight. Neal will be home tomorrow and we will get that injury sorted. The officials at Queens have probably never picked up a racket in their lives so have no idea about how this could effect your future career and the potential earnings. But we will keep going as we have done and not stop. I thank all you guys who are the most informed of what is going on in British Tennis. ie,Bob from Spain, Phil Wright, Spectator. As for the comments abount singles players playing doubles its a piss take they mess around and con the public as they have no interest in doubles. Its all about entertaining the paying public and thats not what they do, its a practice session.

All good piss takes have an element of truth to them and while I have no idea about your own circumstances it is obvious to pretty much everybody that if your face doesn't fit you won't get much help from British tennis officialdom.

As for singles players in doubles, no objection to them playing but giving them wild cards is madness. Also I think the awful changes to doubles scoring (no ad scoring and match tie breaks) has been a big factor in singles players using doubles for practice. If they faced the prospect of a 3 set match over 2.5 hours or more some singles players would be much less inclined to play.

sampras6642 · Improver

Sad to say all four players were told to get on with it because their name is not Murray or Nadal,
who would tell them where to go.

-- Edited by sampras6642 on Saturday 11th of June 2016 10:19:25 PM

-- Edited by sampras6642 on Saturday 11th of June 2016 10:20:11 PM

RJA · Hall of fame

indiana wrote:
The lack of empathy here from officialdom regarding a match that no doubt mattered a very big deal to 'proper' doubles players trying to make a living and seize such chances as come along seems quite terrible. Other than keep the schedule really neat and hunky dory as they had planned, I imagine there was no absolute need to play this match on Saturday.

I am taking it that the answer re my earlier questions is that players do just have to play when instructed ?

Hoping for all the very best about Neal and it's not as bad as seems feared. Put in an awful position.

I can sort of understand it (although it is still wrong) when you are trying to play three rounds of qualifying over 2 days but when it is two rounds over two days there really is no rush. In the doubles this is even more true, would it really have hurt to play both qualifying rounds tomorrow? Or even to have left the final qualifying round until Monday.

When Queen's had a 32 man qualifying draw, a 56 main draw and 24 team doubles draw they had to play 102 matches in 9 days. Now that have a 16 man qualifying draw, a 32 man main draw, a 16 team doubles draw and a 4 team doubles qualifying draw which is a total of 61 matches. That really should allow greater flexibility.

-- Edited by RJA on Saturday 11th of June 2016 10:22:50 PM

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

RJA wrote:

When Queen's had a 32 man qualifying draw, a 56 main draw and 24 team doubles draw they had to play 102 matches in 9 days. Now that have a 16 man qualifying draw, a 32 man main draw, a 16 team doubles draw and a 4 team doubles qualifying draw which is a total of 61 matches. That really should allow greater flexibility.

-- Edited by RJA on Saturday 11th of June 2016 10:22:50 PM

Just to back that statement up, I notice that on today's draw, there are 4 singles matches which are being played simultaneously at 12 noon, and then 1 solitary doubles match. Even on the main court with a singles and doubles, it is likely that play will be finished by mid afternoon. So it is not as if they couldn't have delayed yesterday's doubles until today.

I am sure that if you asked the players "would you rather play 2 doubles matches in 1 day or go out and play on a wet and dangerous court" the answer would be obvious.

It is a shame that Ross Hutchins is no longer tournament director at Queens, because if he was, I am sure he would have seen this whole situation more from a players perspective.

RJA · Hall of fame

Bob in Spain wrote:
RJA wrote:

When Queen's had a 32 man qualifying draw, a 56 main draw and 24 team doubles draw they had to play 102 matches in 9 days. Now that have a 16 man qualifying draw, a 32 man main draw, a 16 team doubles draw and a 4 team doubles qualifying draw which is a total of 61 matches. That really should allow greater flexibility.

-- Edited by RJA on Saturday 11th of June 2016 10:22:50 PM
Just to back that statement up, I notice that on today's draw, there are 4 singles matches which are being played simultaneously at 12 noon, and then 1 solitary doubles match. Even on the main court with a singles and doubles, it is likely that play will be finished by mid afternoon. So it is not as if they couldn't have delayed yesterday's doubles until today.
I am sure that if you asked the players "would you rather play 2 doubles matches in 1 day or go out and play on a wet and dangerous court" the answer would be obvious.
It is a shame that Ross Hutchins is no longer tournament director at Queens, because if he was, I am sure he would have seen this whole situation more from a players perspective.

Today's schedule looks like the only concern is convenience for the officials. Compare and contrast with Halle where they also have 4 singles matches today but 3 of them are played on the same court. As a fan at Halle you can watch Becker v Haase, Ram v Stakhovsky and Gulbis v Gojowczyk in back to back matches. That is a great days tennis, well worth travelling to see. At Queen's you get to watch one singles match and maybe some / all of a doubles match (depends how long the singles match you are watching lasts) which is okay if you are close by but not really worth travelling any distance for.

Scheduling should be a balance between what is good for fans and what is good for players with the convenience of officials way, way back in a distant third place. In Britain it always seem to work the other way round.