Week 17 - ATP 500 - Barcelona Open - Spain (clay)

Vandenburg · Futures level

Week 17 - ATP 500 - Barcelona Open - Spain (clay)

skibbarriz · Strong Club Player

Well he can have a WR of 19 but unless he does something significant in slams, the general public aren't going to know or care who he is.

Jeff Stelling · Club Coach

Strongly agree with both. I've produced a list of horrid over-ranked players who cheapened themselves and their nations by playing a pathetic quantity of risible tournaments.

If they were football teams they'd have been playing in the cranberry sauce leagues, but as it is they ended up being "world class" tennis players.

Rainer Schuettler
Fernando Vicente
Albert Montanes
Kenny de Schepper
Nikolay Davydenko (although it mitigation he could ball a bit)
Lars Burgsmuller
Anthony Dupuis
Bjorn Phau
Bohdan Ulihrach
Andrea Gaudenzi
Marcelo Fillipini
Sargis Sargsian

indiana · Tennis legend

It's a ruddy disgrace those pro tennis players entering all these pro tournaments. They trying to earn money or like playing tennis tournaments or some other shameful excuse?

goldfish · Futures qualifying

Stircrazy wrote:
QF: (1/WC) Andy Murray WR 1 vs (10) Albert Ramos (ESP) WR 19 (= CH)
The head-to-head is 0-1: Ramos beat Andy in three sets in the last 16 at Monte-Carlo a couple of weeks ago.

Might feel like a couple of weeks ago but it was actually only last Thursday!

thejester · Satellite level

Jeff Stelling wrote:
Strongly agree with both. I've produced a list of horrid over-ranked players who cheapened themselves and their nations by playing a pathetic quantity of risible tournaments.

If they were football teams they'd have been playing in the cranberry sauce leagues, but as it is they ended up being "world class" tennis players.

Rainer Schuettler
Fernando Vicente
Albert Montanes
Kenny de Schepper
Nikolay Davydenko (although it mitigation he could ball a bit)
Lars Burgsmuller
Anthony Dupuis
Bjorn Phau
Bohdan Ulihrach
Andrea Gaudenzi
Marcelo Fillipini
Sargis Sargsian

With all due respect to your list, Davydenko won the Tour Finals, pretty decent company in that winner's enclosure...

Jeff Stelling · Club Coach

As I acknowledged sir, he could ball a bit.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

goldfish wrote:
Stircrazy wrote:
QF: (1/WC) Andy Murray WR 1 vs (10) Albert Ramos (ESP) WR 19 (= CH)
The head-to-head is 0-1: Ramos beat Andy in three sets in the last 16 at Monte-Carlo a couple of weeks ago.
Might feel like a couple of weeks ago but it was actually only last Thursday!

Was it?!! disbelief

Jaggy1876 · Grand Slam Champion

Rainer schuettler the Grand Slam finalist as well.

Spectator · All-time great

Davydenko won not only the Tour finals but also three Masters Series, was ranked third in the world (and top ten for five consecutive years), was part of a Davis-Cup-winning team, and had the misfortune to lose to a peaking Roger Federer in the SF of several Slams. Can't say he was a player I particularly warmed to, but hard to argue he wasn't world class.

More broadly, if you have a ranking in the top 20 or top 30 in the world and you're not world class, what does it take? I would see being on the Main Tour as being world class: there are fewer people who can enter MDs of ATP 250s by right than there are players in the Premier League alone.

-- Edited by Spectator on Friday 28th of April 2017 04:28:57 AM

goldfish · Futures qualifying

Got to warm to Davydenko towards the end of his career. Always felt sorry for him - rarely scheduled on top show courts, considered boring, but Fed himself has said that had he been pushed to outside courts, he probably wouldn't have had the success he achieved.

Jimmy09 · Intermediate Club Player

Couldn't disagree more. At the lower futures level yes you can "blag" your way up the rankings by travelling to the slums of the earth, but anything from 250 above is much much tougher. They didn't just get to those rankings by fluke, they had been consistent through a years worth of tennis. If they were picking up tour level tournament wins and exceeding their ranking potential i would call it clever planning. I just dont agree with saying people are over ranked, they obviously aren't as they wouldn't be ranked there in the first place

cecil · Social player

Wouldn't racking up several non-counting ATP 250 QF's be justification that you are world class and consistent at main tour level as opposed to having a 'lucky' tournament where you accrue a large one-off counter that would inflate a ranking?

Vandenburg · Futures level

Jimmy09 wrote:
Couldn't disagree more. At the lower futures level yes you can "blag" your way up the rankings by travelling to the slums of the earth, but anything from 250 above is much much tougher. They didn't just get to those rankings by fluke, they had been consistent through a years worth of tennis. If they were picking up tour level tournament wins and exceeding their ranking potential i would call it clever planning. I just dont agree with saying people are over ranked, they obviously aren't as they wouldn't be ranked there in the first place

Missing the point, I agree with you, at futures and challengers you can play them in god awful places where the top seed is 300 and mop up. Of course 250s are not easy, never said that, but the more to the point, is when people enter one every week like this chap.

This ties in with the over all problem facing tennis in the last decade, it has become a sport about 80% fitness, 20% talent. Having the fitness to be able to play 52 x 250s a year.

These god awful slow courts have not helped either (which is why the AO was speeded up this year). The faster the court, the more a person's technique is exposed, they have less timing. Fast courts favour natural talent and touch over stamina.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Purely about speed, as Andy has said, it's more about the balls chosen and not the courts, which is something that has changed hugely but which is a lot less visible.

Davydenko was very clear in his objectives and his training - he said once in an interview that it was the money that motivated him and so, by playing tournaments instead of training, or by using tournaments effectively as training, he 'trained' a lot better because he had the dollar sign there dangling in front of him. Which, in turn, made him a better player and able to earn more.