Oakland2002 wrote:

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I don't think the points matter in a day to day sense, it is dominating this cohort of players that is important and the confidence it instills that suggests Jay can step up to the next level and work his way through that.

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Oakland, I've never known anyone in my life so utterly obsessed with the word 'cohort'. That's not a criticism by the way, but boy do you love those cohorts 

I agree that whilst on a day-to-day basis the points aren't everything, the more important thing is to see Jay becoming consistent. Getting match wins, and going deep in tournaments, will serve him well as experience as and when he steps up a level. 

I thought it was the perfect choice of word given he's playing in Italy, but it is not the word that is my obsession but his performance relative to those playing futures in this run of futures tournaments.

We saw Kyle have a similar run back in 2013 starting in the summer, about now, in Italy, he then stuttered a little in Polish futures (where he lost to the same player back to back SF and QF) before trying some more clay Eastern European challengers. Kyle then spent some of the off season in Miami with Andy. He then dominated the futures fields in Florida with two tittles in Jan and then another in Croatia before stepping up fulltime to challengers.

Kyle then repeated a similar pattern of emerging dominance two years later; in the summer of 2015 running into early 2016. He dominated the challenger field or group of players playing challengers at that time (it could be consider a cohort? particularly if you had an urge to perform any statistical analysis). The relative ebb and flow of points in part reflects where the individual sits in that cycle and by historical comparison Jay would be in full flow; it will ebb, which is fine. What is exciting is that he is progressing nicely through the initial futures cycle at an age and with a game that suggests the pattern may well repeat at Challenger level. Development is more about the big picture over two year cycles, obviously it is always good to be winning but loosing isn't all bad.

What was very interesting was that Kyle had a great understanding of that process and even during his interviews as a teenager where he wasn't that fluent infront of the camera spelt it out, constantly repeating the mantra that he didn't really have ranking targets but focused on performance while developing his game, we because the board is based around a series of tables and tournament threads focus on week by week accumulation of points. Interesting this is where the ATP go on the main tour in order to create some sort of drama outside what is the players main focus, winning slams.

SF:  (1) Jay Clarke WR 326 vs Andrea Basso (ITA) WR 512 (CH = 472 in July 2015)

Stircrazy wrote:

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SF:  (1) Jay Clarke WR 326 vs Andrea Basso (ITA) WR 512 (CH = 472 in July 2015)

-- Edited by Sheddie on Thursday 3rd of August 2017 08:55:47 PM

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Sheddie, dear, pray tell: what did I get wrong this time?     It would help to know so that I try to avoid repeating the error. 

Stircrazy wrote:

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Stircrazy wrote:

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SF:  (1) Jay Clarke WR 326 vs Andrea Basso (ITA) WR 512 (CH = 472 in July 2015)

-- Edited by Sheddie on Thursday 3rd of August 2017 08:55:47 PM

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Sheddie, dear, pray tell: what did I get wrong this time?     It would help to know so that I try to avoid repeating the error. 

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 Just got the round wrong - put QF not SF (but suspect most of us worked it out!!)

It looks like young Jay has fallen prey to Sig. Basso for the second week running....