We've just had 3 tournaments, 2x ITF 15ks, in Wirral and Sunderland, followed by one 25k ITF in Shrewsbury.
I thought it worthwhile to recap how well our players have performed, thoughout...
Wirral; 6 qualifiers from 8; 3 of the 4 semifinalists, Brit winner and RU. In doubles, all 8 semifinalists.
Sunderland; 8 qualifiers from 8; 6 of 8 QFists, all 4 semifinalist or better. In doubles, 3/4 finalists.
Shrewsbury; 3 qualifiers; 7 winners from 8 in R1; 2 WCs into the QFs. All 4 doubles finalists Brits.
Overall, these are spectacularly good results; Sam and Maia won titles, Freya and Eden reached finals. The LTA was able to make very good choices for the WCs for the Shrewsbury 25k. In doubles, an unmitigated triumph.
Partly, I think this is a virtue of the scheduling of 15k/15k/25k. There's a good incentive for the better of our 15k players to enter all three, in the hope of winning a WC to the 25k. Much less attractive to peskies, especially with these stronger UK fields in the 15k events.
I think it's a very good programme, and that the LTA would do well to run a similar schedule on every possible occasion in future, with a couple of 15k serving as warm-up, practice and MD WC qualifiers for a subsequent 25k.
Two issues - there is little money or sponsorship available to maintain the current levels
Most of the successful GB players, will have rankings capable of stepping up to 25k - Sam, Maia, EWS, Beth, Eden, Freya, Jodie. By the time next season comes around i'd expect all these girls to be playing 25ks alongside the others already at that level. There is little immediate talent behind this group other than good juniors.
The LTA should be putting on more 25ks for women to meet the majority of GB requirements.
There is plenty of money - it just depends what the LTA wish to prioritise.
We've had plenty of 25ks with hardly any British representation by the QFs (even R2). The Shrewsbury one was better than a lot but there were still only 2 british QFs, and zero SFs - hardly a resounding success.
A balance is needed.
Often, the top lot of girls are not even here when the 25ks are played - the LTA does not seem to communicate with them about schedules (tricky, I realise, but not impossible). And some of them are pretty well funded anyway so traveling is less of an issue for them.
Good juniors, those back from injury, college and Uni grads just starting, those moving up from British Tour - they all urgently need 15ks. As do their coaches, and the tennis system as a whole. A top heavy system can't work. It's one of the main problems of the LTA up to now.
The LTA has an income somewhere around £1M per week. I can't see it's excessive to expect it to spend 1% of this - £10k -$15k - occasionally, in some weeks.
Otherwise, it would actually make sense for the players to club together and finance the tournament prize money themselves, out of tbeir own pockets. 35 UK entrants at Wirall - prizemoney US$15k - US$428 per entrant - approx £300. Cheapest week return currently available from UK to Sharm - £495.
-- Edited by wimdledont on Saturday 11th of November 2017 01:27:03 PM
Two issues - there is little money or sponsorship available to maintain the current levels Most of the successful GB players, will have rankings capable of stepping up to 25k - Sam, Maia, EWS, Beth, Eden, Freya, Jodie. By the time next season comes around i'd expect all these girls to be playing 25ks alongside the others already at that level. There is little immediate talent behind this group other than good juniors. The LTA should be putting on more 25ks for women to meet the majority of GB requirements.
I'm no authority on the money but it does indeed seem much more a lack of will / priority and being prepared to subsidise to anything like the extent that was apparently the case in the past. I think that other nationalities would look at you amazed if you said our lack of lower level ITFs was due to lack of money.
And as I've said before IMO advance schedules and tournament mixes should not be based on where you think / speculate players are going to be ranked and generally prioritising next year, though yes where there are options consider when looks best to host events. Playing around with the mix can be too ( not ) clever for your own good and some players' good. Much better to have a fairly consistent schedule and that should surely involve more lower level ITFs ( both 25Ks and 15Ks ). Better to help bring on players and committing more to clubs might help build a relationship with the club ( even the area if they really wanted to go a bit mad and advertise their presence each year and involve the community ).
PS: although I guess there are many unknowns about worldwide lower level ITFs in general with universal change seemingly in the pipeline for 2019.
-- Edited by indiana on Saturday 11th of November 2017 08:41:01 PM
We've had a period of 2/3 years where we didn't have many players doing well at 25K level. And the ones who were chose to play abroad.
We now have a group of young players in transition from 15k to 25k and a few returning from injury so we should see more success at 25k level. In the past we've always seen success when we've had a series of tournaments and these 3 weeks show that again. Sam and Maia building up to good weeks in 25k's.
I used to love the 2 10k's and 2 25k's at the start fo the year made total sense.
Most of the money has gone into these silly 100k's during the grass season. I would suggest keeping 2 of them. Reducing one down to a 25k/60k and use the other money for more 15k's/25k's post Wimbledon like we used to have.
