Week 39 - Great Britain F6 ($15,000) - Barnstaple (hard - indoor)

Wardy · Social player

Week 39 - Great Britain F6 ($15,000) - Barnstaple (hard - indoor)

indiana · Tennis legend

Quite a good idea these futures thingies to aid development and help get some home players on the first rung of the rankings ladder. And pay a few quid to some.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Round-up of the outstanding matches & L16 match-ups:

L32: (Q) Tad Maclean UNR defeated (Q) Barnaby Smith UNR by 4 & 5

L32: Billy Harris WR 783 defeated (8) Richard Gabb WR 689 by 5 & 1 biggrin bleh

L32: (LL) Alexander Babanine (AUS) UNR defeated (Q) Tommy Bennett UNR by 7-6(5) 3-6 6-1 cry

*****

L16: (1) David Guez (FRA) WR 293 vs (Q) Tad Maclean UNR

L16: Billy Harris WR 783 vs (Q) Rob Carter WR 1768
[non-GB - L16: (LL) Alexander Babanine (AUS) UNR vs (2) Michal Konecny (CZE) WR 449]

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

L16: (1) Peter Bothwell (IRL) & Neil Pauffley CR 1576 (735+841) defeated Josh Paris & Ryan Storrie CR 2212 (898+1414) by 3 & 5

L16: (3) Dusty Boyer & Lukas Ollert (USA/GER) CR 1978 (1206+772) defeated Jack Caso & Pedro Ortega (BRA) UNR by 1 & 2

L16: Rob Carter & Ryan Peniston UNR defeated James Story & Harry Wendelken UNR by 6-2 7-6(5)
L16: (4) Joe Cooper & Michal Konecny (CZE) CR 2250 (1710+540) defeated Adam Jones & Shahbaaz Khan (IND) UNR (0+1426) by 4 & 3

******

QF: Rob Carter & Ryan Peniston UNR vs (4) Joe Cooper & Michal Konecny (CZE) CR 2250 (1710+540)

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Like everyone, I get split loyalties on all GB ties, but I am pleased for Billy today. Sorry Rich.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Wardy wrote:

Another good win for Tad. I saw him play a while ago he likes to be aggressive the fast indoor courts obviously suits his game.

Good to hear.

And, yes, well done to him.

He's from Newquay, isn't he? So local lad (sort of).

I remember reading his crowdfunding page - life isn't too easy if you're from a single parent family and you have to do all your traveling etc. alone.

Wish all the very best. And congrats on a big milestone.

paulisi · Tennis legend

Last time I saw Tad play was at G5 on the Wirral 12 months ago. He lost in qualifying to young Toby Samuel. I didn't think much of his game and if someone had said he would be ranked on the main tour in 12 months time I would have requested the men in white coats to turn up.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

paulisi wrote:
Last time I saw Tad play was at G5 on the Wirral 12 months ago. He lost in qualifying to young Toby Samuel. I didn't think much of his game and if someone had said he would be ranked on the main tour in 12 months time I would have requested the men in white coats to turn up.

smile

Wardy · Social player

paulisi wrote:
Last time I saw Tad play was at G5 on the Wirral 12 months ago. He lost in qualifying to young Toby Samuel. I didn't think much of his game and if someone had said he would be ranked on the main tour in 12 months time I would have requested the men in white coats to turn up.

Yes my thoughts exactly when I saw him he was aggressive but made a huge amount of errors and lost easily.

Toby · Lower Club Player

Yes and how bad that there are only 6 events in the UK meaning our guys have to travel abroad most of the year to gain points.

Countries like France and Spain have far more, even Turkey and Tunisia have 30+ tournaments at this level.

indiana · Tennis legend

Toby wrote:
Yes and how bad that there are only 6 events in the UK meaning our guys have to travel abroad most of the year to gain points.
Countries like France and Spain have far more, even Turkey and Tunisia have 30+ tournaments at this level.

Bad. It is something that has much been discussed quite a lot over time in the forum and the absolute lack of any happy medium from the 30 odd ( I think it was ) futures in the Roger Draper days to in many people's views the ridiculously small number of home men's futures and women's lower level ITFs, particularly15Ks, that we have now. Hence my maybe rather tired and cynical earlier remark about these "futures thingies" being quite helpful.

I'm not really bothered about the pile of futures in such as Turkey, Tunisia and Egypt which are often particular resort based and have other motives aside from from directly tennis related such as highlighting / boosting the resort.

But the huge divergence between GB and such as France, Spain and Italy is just on top of western European countries such as France and Germany having hugely greater tennis infrastructure and leagues and money tournaments. All in all it leaves such few opportunities for especially not well off young players to get much senior experience let alone get a foothold into the rankings.

I notice our number of non ranked women players with one and two counters has dramatically tailed off, I'd say quite largely directly linked to the lack of home opportunities. And when they need three counters to get an official ranking one could imagine a few thinking it's hardly worth it. That could feed through in time in theory to us struggling to keep up the number of ranked women. Occasionally concerns are voiiced about us even in future having enough ranked women to fill a top 25 table, but we have 32 just now and are fine with that until at least next summer and probably well beyond and there are a good number of very promising junior girls one can see breaking well into the rankings in the next few years because of their talent ( and no doubt some good coaching from wherever ) and not thanks at all to the home tournament structure.

It's all pretty difficult, men and women, and very arguably more difficult than it need be for aspiring young GB players, and also some not so young.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

Toby wrote:
Yes and how bad that there are only 6 events in the UK meaning our guys have to travel abroad most of the year to gain points.
Countries like France and Spain have far more, even Turkey and Tunisia have 30+ tournaments at this level.

Basically what Indi has said above. We have debated and thrown around ideas here ad infinitum. One of the issues, I am told, is the lack of venues willing to host these futures events. When the LTA sent out a circular offering to joint fund the tournaments on a 50/50 basis, they had ZERO replies from clubs willing to act as hosts. Only when they offered to fully fund them did they get any responses at all. I quite like an idea put forward by CD which offers clubs additional Wimbledon tickets in return for hosting futures, and perhaps even taking away their allocation if a club refuses.

I wont go into the ins and outs of the other various ideas that have been mooted here, other than to say that one of our more esteemed members, actually raised the "lack of futures tournaments" in a House of Commons debate. Needless to say the politicians put the ball back into the LTA's court, so to speak.

JonH · All-time great

One thing that has struck me in the past is that these events just don't sound appealing from a publicity perspective. Britain F6 is meaningless to the general public and the press. It has no history and no context. Who won Britain F6 last year - and oh it was probably played outdoors in Glasgow or some such( that's made up to make the point). Why not ensure there is a 3 or 5 year commitment to Barnstaple, call it the south West of England indoor pro championships or something and give it an identity etc. Yes it might still be F6 but not for marketing purposes... Just an idea.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

JonH wrote:
One thing that has struck me in the past is that these events just don't sound appealing from a publicity perspective. Britain F6 is meaningless to the general public and the press. It has no history and no context. Who won Britain F6 last year - and oh it was probably played outdoors in Glasgow or some such( that's made up to make the point). Why not ensure there is a 3 or 5 year commitment to Barnstaple, call it the south West of England indoor pro championships or something and give it an identity etc. Yes it might still be F6 but not for marketing purposes... Just an idea.

You and I think very much alike, I think. My idea has always been to turn each tournament into a week long "Festival of Tennis" where the futures tournament is just a part of what is going on. Bring in coaches, offer free group sessions, coaching award courses, etc. This could be marketed quite easily in my opinion.

JonH · All-time great

One would hope that Scott Lloyd would have a good perspective on these things, he has a track record.

I used to play in and then attend the Ilkley Annual event. It was (is) held every late July or early August and had around 31 different actual events. Mens Singles, ladies singles, doubles x3 (incl mixed), Evening singles and doubles x5, handicap singles and doubles (handicap being where players gave away points based on ability not disabled events) x5, juniors at u-18 down to u12 I think, singles and doubles , and veterans events - a whole host of different events, with a headline sponsor for the week, local and regional press coverage and one year it had TV.

Usually the entry consisted of players like Mike Appleton, Donald Watt, John Paish, Simon Ickringill, a few years bigger names like Jeremy Bates, Peter McNAmara and Vijay Amritraj.

The stands where always full and if the weather was lousy (it always was!) then it went indoors and was filled to the rafters (which meant a couple of hundred folks - none of the other players could play outdoors in the rain on grass so all would go inside and watch the top players going at it on the carpet courts). Bobs idea of a festival was v much like that and the event had real substance as a consequence.And similar on the ladies.

The Challenger came to Ilkley more recently and has a different identity and the annual Open is now part of the British Tour but in becoming part of that it has lost a little of its unique identity as "Ilkley" and is a little the poorer for it I feel.