I honestly have no idea what James was thinking of when he decided to play on clay this week. He would easily have made it into the hard court challenger in St Remy.
I won't go into the many reasons why I believe Jimbo is in a bad place at the moment, as they are all in the past and I'm sure they have been discussed previously on here anyway but as Stircrazy says he needs to forget about tennis for a while. Take a 'holiday of a lifetime', he can afford it thanks to the Wimbledon WC committee, keep working on his fitness and start again in 2017.
Most players have to take a 'time out' at some stage in their career to freshen up. For anyone worried about his ranking, well it won't improve with first round defeats.
I won't go into the many reasons why I believe Jimbo is in a bad place at the moment, as they are all in the past and I'm sure they have been discussed previously on here anyway but as Stircrazy says he needs to forget about tennis for a while. Take a 'holiday of a lifetime', he can afford it thanks to the Wimbledon WC committee, keep working on his fitness and start again in 2017. Most players have to take a 'time out' at some stage in their career to freshen up. For anyone worried about his ranking, well it won't improve with first round defeats.
I don't disagree with that but if he didn't play again for the rest of the season he would end the year outside of the top 400 which would mean either playing challenger qualifying or futures. As he nears his 30th birthday I really can't see him wanting to return to playing futures and while challenger qualifying doesn't sound too bad it often means playing 3 matches in 2 days which while very doable for a player like James obviously detracts from your chances in the main draw (as previously stated James isn't a youngster anymore). Also you only have to slip up in one of your qualifiers and it is zero points and prize money for your efforts.
It would also mean giving up on any hope of playing Australian Open qualifying and would likely lead to him not getting Wimbledon and Queen's wildcards next year (which go a long way to funding the rest of his season). So while I agree that a lengthy break could have a lot of benefits I can understand why James wouldn't see that as a viable option and for better or worse he is going to keep buggering on and hope that something improves.
