Winter County Cup

JonH · All-time great

Winter County Cup

Elegant Point · Satellite level

Well done Essex winng the group 1 men's !
very tough weekend for last years winners Herts with their number 1 player Neil B retiring on Saturday and 4 players from last years winning team still away at college. Herts finished bottom with Yorkshire second and Lancashire third.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Kent champions on the ladies side. Sofia Johnson (14) fresh from Grade 4 juniors in Liverpool winning all her matches at No4 and playing doubles with Naomi Cavaday, the type of pairing one really likes to see with Sofia having plenty to learn and Naomi plenty to teach.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Have a bit of a soft spot for Lincolnshire on the men's side, I see them as over achievers and they move back up from Div 2a, with Sean Hodgkin putting Neil Pauffley and Dan Cox, Marcus Willis to the sword as Lincolnshire swept the singles in the clash with Berkshire. Also good seeing Joe Woolley back from Utah playing No no 6! Strikes me as a pretty deep team.

Richard Bloomfield retired after winning a 1 hr 20 minute? First set tie break 7-6(5), and then retiring after a game in the second against Sean... always good to see players with extensive tour experience playing adds considerable depth and you get 25K standard match ups in the no 1 and no 2 slots in the upper leagues.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Elegant Point wrote:
Well done Essex winng the group 1 men's !
very tough weekend for last years winners Herts with their number 1 player Neil B retiring on Saturday and 4 players from last years winning team still away at college. Herts finished bottom with Yorkshire second and Lancashire third.

Essex won because of their depth Rob Carter and Marshall Tutu winning all their singles matches at 3 and 4. Some really good match ups at the top end of the order. Unusually for Paul Jubb he didn't win all his matches indeed lost in straight sets in the battle of the roses to some muppet called .... Broady. Although Ryan Penniston beat him in three! But lost to Paul in straight sets. Strikes me as a very good standard of tennis.

wolf · Tennis legend

Staffordshire promoted to div 2 next year

Elegant Point · Satellite level

A little off topic but County Cup one of the few team tennis events.

Watched the film Moneyball and found the whole premise of using statistics to build a winning team fascinating.

Do you think a tennis player could be evaluated in such away? If you had 2 really standout players for County Cup and then 4-6 you just couldn't split by watching them train together (ignoring LTA rating/rankings etc). For singles play what attributes would you look to evaluate to decide a players worth to the team?

Anyone still awake ???

Oakland2002 · All-time great

They are probably two different things.

Moneyball was all about seeking value previously ignored and primarily resolved around the relative cost of power versus the capacity to just get on base, any means any how, and or stay at the plate increasing the pitch count. Another essential component often missed in translation are the contractural regulations in place in the MLB that actually allow teams that find talent to accumulate and keep it long enough to build something on the field. This allowed Oakland2002 to effectively compete with the second lowest budget in the MLB.

Transitioning the concept to other sports has been less than straight forward and required significant nuancing.

Team Tennis is only a team game to the extent doubles is. Any singles component is really just that, and you pool the singles and doubles outcomes to create a score. Generally the college teams play and train together and a natural pecking order. Generally the best teams win because of depth at 3,4,5 and 6 as only the strongest programmes can recruit top players who will play down the order.

Elegant Point · Satellite level

Thank you for clarification Oakland - just twigged the connection with the name smile So baseball is uniquely suited to the application of sports analytics.... and you can't beat depth on a tennis team.

The Optimist · ATP qualifying

Yes, in County Cup, college tennis or club team tennis, I'd always back the team with really solid players at the lower end rather than the team with the stand-out #1

Michael D · All-time great

Elegant Point wrote:
Thank you for clarification Oakland - just twigged the connection with the name So baseball is uniquely suited to the application of sports analytics.... and you can't beat depth on a tennis team.

Well, I think you can apply some of the moneyball principles to other types of sports too EP. The football team I support, Norwich City, is now just 2-3 wins off winning the Championship this year with a team built very much according to moneyball principles - high quality technical players scouted through good statistical analysis and watching them perform, bought on the cheap - or in the case of their 27 goal top Finnish striker on a free transfer! - coupled with some very good young players from the club's own academy. They have then been moulded into a unit with a strong focus on team spirit and cohesion by their German manager and surpassed everyone's expectations this season. The whole squad that is currently playing was bought for £5-6 million, which in football terms is nothing at all. Yet technically they have many of the best players in the Championship.

Elegant Point · Satellite level

Following on from MD's post and having Googled football analytics, it seems to be an emerging field, more challenging than baseball to predict but not insurmountable. Norwich have clearly been very astute!

For college tennis teams as Oakland pointed out money talks (as for a lot of things in tennis cry ) so the wealthier teams can buy depth. Massey.com ranks US college tennis teams and can be used to predict outcome of a matchup. Key includes 5 data fields - Rating overall strength, Power rating, Offensive power to ratings score, Defensive power to prevent opponent from scoring and Home field advantage, but I guess this is data driven rather than analytics based.

I suppose as County teams rely on local players we will generally always see the same teams winning and losing against each other- there is no magic formula; pity as it would be interesting to see some big changes

Oakland2002 · All-time great

Undoubtedly moneyball principles have been applied to football, but at the highest level it is much more challenging. Norwich are not at the highest level and in the championship are aided by financial fair play regulations. Essentially in the premiership there is a finite amount of value in any transfer window and the biggest clubs with the most money do their statistical assessment and are best at finding it at all ages, they play top dollar, Chelsea have a player who played for England before starting in the premiership for their first team you cannot hold your premiership talent. Villas youth team beat Arsenals 10-1, about 5 years back what happened Arsenal bought Villas best young player of that generation... well you cant but he moved and his parents are wealthy than they were. Baseball is much more structured with a draft, young players are taken into the MLB in order, the worst team picks first. Moneyball is all about restocking when the playing field is at least even for the young players entering the game perhaps even slightly skewed towards the worst teams who can trade their high picks for lots of mid ranking picks where until everyone understood the metrics there was value others dont see. Once recruited those players are in 5 yr contracts, the MLB is a closed shop and the only elite baseball market, Real Madrid cannot step in and buy your asset ever and Arsenal cant touch it for 5 years without giving up their young talent or picks. The draft concept takes away the power of money initially, the value obtained there can be used to trade later with the advantage of different talent assessment metrics.

Last season Norwich were very close to being competitive but had to sell on a couple of players at a vast profit which has allowed them to reinvest (they threw a 6 in recruiting a 29 year old Finn! who will have no resale value) but each time you do that you role the dice. Brentford have had exactly the same approach (but are a less valuable club, pay lower wages etc...) but on the pitch were it a very similar position last year and have been rolling that dice for many more years with arguably more astute input initially. Matthew Benham is probably the most aggressive user of mathematical modelling. Brentford are Brentford when they do well they finish 9th. Norwich by championship standards sit in a gaggle of historically predominantly premiership/first division clubs yo-yo but up more than down and general go up when they have high quality management. Moneyball would be Rotherham getting promoted!

I subscribe to the newest trend employed by Sheffield Utd and Aston Villa who have recruited fans as managers which is obviously the way forward and its mine turn next.

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Tuesday 16th of April 2019 04:37:12 AM

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Tuesday 16th of April 2019 04:38:37 AM

Elegant Point · Satellite level

Winter County Cup 2019 - starts today.

For those in group 1 and 2 a significant number of their players can be away at college. It is Thanksgiving next week, allowing some of the players to fly home to compete, but others have been refused permission to leave college early. Herts went from winning the men's group 1 in 2017 to being relegated to group 2 in 2018 as most of their winning tem were away at college. This year both Herts men's and women's team will be aiming for promotion back to division 1.The Essex team is brilliantly organised as usual and players will be flying back.

Men's group 1 in Bath are Essex, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Surrey
Womens also in Bath are Kent, Essex, Middlesex and Surrey

Born2WinTennis · Club Coach

Yes Ryan Peniston is playing in a strong looking Essex team with Marshall Tutu, Rob Carter, Henry Patten and David Wright etc. Will be surprised if anyone can beat them.
Surrey could have a really strong team but don't look at full strength, Mark Whitehouse at no.1 with Andrew Watson no.2 Alex Jhun at no.3
Should be a straight shootout for the title Surrey vs Essex