I never thought I would say it but Vadenburg makes an excellent point, the slowing of the game both courts and balls (grass) has shifted the emphasis to the quality of the return of serve and indeed defensive play in general. Something that has enhanced tennis immeasurably, even saved the game post Sampras.

Reaction times is a mute point which Matthew Syed explored in bounce, there is an excellent bit about one of my childhood heros Desmond Douglas and his belief that that was the basis of his game, when explored he was just average. It was a capacity to anticipate and with experience understand cues and respond to them it is this that I thing along with a more professional generic approach by players that has caused the age shift.

I agree with Indy that Andy would still have been an elite more dominant player in another era, his return of serve transcends the the likes of Agassi and Chang and his power game is one of the strongest in the big four, and arguably he is also the best natural athlete in that group when you combine speed and stamina.

Thoughts of Sampras's game should get me back off to sleep nicely!!!

Oakland2002 wrote:

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I agree but Opelka is destined to be the next Isner, agreed I can't see Ed punching his way into the top 100 but he is playing the highest level he can on merit and the fact that he continues to do so implies he enjoys it, the only coffers he drains are his own.

Everyone's definition of success is different and taking an aspiring super elite servebot to three sets I would not regard as abject failure. A bad draw? or an opportunity to put ones return of serve to the ultimate test in this post Brexit, Presidential Trump era defined by post-truth utterances results are irrelevant it's all to do with how you frame the conversation.

Regardless looking at the evidence If we see Ed in AO qualifying and I were Ed looking back on 2016 I would consider it a success when compared to previous years.

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 I was hoping he would make the AO quallies, either way it looks as though Ed is always going to be a nearly man.  Having seen him play a lot over the last two years he is incredibly inconsistent.  At least he has had a reasonable year though.

Mark, like Spectator, I appreciate CD's usually well-informed comments.  In fact I enjoy reading all poster's comments, informed, speculative, amusing or provocative - whether I agree with their standpoint or not.  I also enjoy this forum above other tennis forums because of the complete absence of personal criticism of posters by other participants, the subject matter is debated rather than the poster.  The jibe at CD was completely unnecessary IMO and adds nothing to proceedings.

On the subject matter in hand, I agree that we want to see our players winning more than losing and I agree I cannot see many of them reaching great heights as time goes on, including Ed but I don't see them as failures - they gave it a try and maxed out before they hoped.  If nobody tried the sport would be poorer for it.  On the other hand, I'm glad the LTA is taking a more realistic approach to funding, and not supporting players to play futures for ever and a day with limited progress.

Mark1968 wrote:

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Coup Droit wrote:

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Mark1968 wrote:

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Spectator wrote:

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Actually, I felt that was quite a positive match in that Ed Corrie did better than some other Challenger players have against Opelka recently. They were really rotten draws, though, for the GB men this time around.

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 This is the problem with many folk on here who yet again think a defeat is actually a success, it clearly isn't.  How other people have done against Opelka is immaterial, you either win (success) or loose (failure).

Yet another first round loss for Ed in a challenger as well as for Dan sadly. 

 

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I disagree.

If you are a  coach, watching a new player who you're thinking of taking on, say, you don't just look at whether they won their match or they lost it.

It's not a binary game, loss or success.

You look at how they played, how the opponent played, what they've got that you think could be improved on etc. etc. etc.

I didn't see Ed's match yesterday but I saw his one (well, most of it) against Groth and he was playing very well. And still with definite things to improve on that seem (to me) definitely feasible.

 

 

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 I wonder if anyone else has noticed that Coup Droit HAS to have the final say on virtually every subject discussed on here.  But I suppose having a superior knowledge to the rest of us and being the self appointed owner of the forum this entitles him to do so.

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Not me.  Can't say I have noticed that at all.  As with Spectator, I value the knowledge and input that CD brings to the forum, as I do with many other posters on here - yourself included.  Having people on here with differing opinions is one of the aspects that I like the most about this forum.  It provokes discussion. For me, that is something should be encouraged rather than discouraged.

As to your assertion that win = success and lose = failure, I know that there are many who will agree with you.  I know that the Aussies have that mentality a lot more than us Brits for example.  I also saw a piece on CNN about women's golf in Korea, who boast many of the world's best players.  They have literally hundreds of tournaments a year at different levels and locations and in almost all of those, the winner gets the trophy and the rest get NOTHING.  Given their success in women's golf, it is difficult to argue against the approach that they have taken.

However, I am not one who subscribes to that philosophy.  For me, when a player walks out on court, he/she should do so with TWO objectives. Winning is definitely one of them, but the other is to learn and come off a better player.

Let me ask a question.  If Ed had gone to Outer Mongolia to play a futures, beaten a bunch of guys ranked outside the Top 1000, would that have been success ?  Maybe yes.  But would it also have helped him with his longer term career objectives ?  Or maybe if Marcus Willis were to stick to playing for Warwick Boat Club, he could thrash everyone week in week out.  Success ? 

Winning IS important.  I don't disagree with you on that one.  But sometimes we have to look at the bigger picture.  In order to improve, players must test themselves against better opponents and that will inevitably lead to some losses and setbacks.  Winning would be better, but providing you leave the court a better player than you entered it, no match is a total failure.

 

I was on a forum once where this happened. Somebody stuck a comment into every thread for a while. It wasn't long before it was noticed and discouraged, particularly if all he contributed was yes or I agree etc. That clearly doesn't happen here, and generally there's a high level of appreciation and knowledge that is totally relevant.

Can we get back to discussing tennis please. I believe we still have some doubles interest in this tournament.