Interested in your views on ...

paulisi · Tennis legend

Interested in your views on ...

brittak · Pro player

I would concur with the general consensus that being asked to give a regular commitment without anything in return seems a bit one way traffic. I think Bobs suggestion of asking them to contribute to your costs of producing the tables/maintaining the data etc is a good one.

What ever you decide you are letting no one on this forum down. You do a brilliant job and produce a fantastic resource of information which we all love and miss on those occasions when you are busy elsewhere.

Dont agonise too much and go with your gut feel - often the best option I find!

Shhh · Challenger level

For the noble reason of highlighting some of the lower ranked players, I'd actually say Yes and go ahead.

I would sit down and write the words in a fairly quick manner, not make to much a big deal of it (a bit like posting on here) and I would tell the person you'll do it for a few months or so to see how it goes but, basically I'd say "Yes"

skibbarriz · Strong Club Player

Go for it.

steven · Tennis legend

Thanks very much for all your comments - they made sense, on both sides of the argument, and were a great help given that I'm swamped with so much other stuff at the moment that I was overthinking this at the back of my mind, if that makes any sense.

Unfortunately, I keeled over with tiredness last night so only got the reply out today, by which time they may well have contacted someone else anyway.

indiana · Tennis legend

My gut feeling on your gut feeling, having weighed it up, is that you'ed initially say yes. But I sense from that that you said no. And the "so much other stuff" may have been a factor. All the best.

steven · Tennis legend

indiana wrote:
My gut feeling on your gut feeling, having weighed it up, is that you'ed initially say yes. But I sense from that that you said no. And the "so much other stuff" may have been a factor. All the best.

A valiant (to put it politely ) attempt to read my fevered mind. It was more a 'yes, but' with the 'other stuff' getting factored in too. If they want to take it further, then great, but I imagine they won't and I'm fine with that outcome too.

No. 1 priority tennis-wise is to get the top 25 tables going again, since I don't really know who's been doing well below tour level this month anyway - I get the impression Emily Appleton and Liam have been having some success, and I know Katie Swan is having a good run this week, but hopefully I've missed some and I'll find out as I compile the missing tables. With luck, I'll manage it this weekend but if not it'll be late next week (i.e. after the 31st)

indiana · Tennis legend

Gut feeling wins again

wimdledont · Challenger level

Hi Steven,

If you were actually looking for a paid role which could monetise your knowledge...

After the DC, it strikes me that the BBC is desperately in need of a researcher to brief their commentary teams. If you could negotiate a fee of 10% of Lloyd/Castle, and prevent them sounding quite so ignorant on live television for several hours, that could well be worth your while, and you'd surely be doing the nation a service. You'd need to knock on/kick down the door...

steven · Tennis legend

wimdledont wrote:
Hi Steven,

If you were actually looking for a paid role which could monetise your knowledge...

After the DC, it strikes me that the BBC is desperately in need of a researcher to brief their commentary teams. If you could negotiate a fee of 10% of Lloyd/Castle, and prevent them sounding quite so ignorant on live television for several hours, that could well be worth your while, and you'd surely be doing the nation a service. You'd need to knock on/kick down the door...

LOL it's a very attractive idea and a couple of people said much the same thing on Twitter at the weekend (I don't think either of them was you, so you make three) - my guess is they already have a researcher, who may well be quite decent, but Lloyd/Castle just ignore them in favour of chuntering on inanely.

Wasn't it great that Bouncy was AWOL last weekend, by the way? I don't hate him as much as some people seem to, but boy oh boy is he irritating on commentary. (I assume he's aimed at people with only a passing interest in tennis rather than people like us, and I do wonder whether they find him as irritating as we do - of course, even if they find him interesting, we know he spends a lot of the time misinforming them, or at best presenting opinion as fact)

So nice to have Jamie Baker giving us the odd break from JL too, JB is very good indeed.

Of course, if I did that and they continued to chunter on regardless, Bouncy might have to do his favourite job - apologising for vaguely audible swearing, except that in this case, it wouldn't be coming from one of the players!

I'm not actively looking for a way to monetise my tennis knowledge (I have other fish to finish frying at the moment) but that doesn't mean I wouldn't be tempted if the assignment was interesting and I would negotiate if someone was asking me to do significant work for them.

As for the thing that started this thread, I'm not going to say exactly what's happened since (it wouldn't be fair to at least one of the other party or me to do so) but we had a useful dialogue, so the idea didn't die an immediate death as I thought it might. Watch this space, I guess ...

Helen40 · Grand Slam Champion

I love what you do, and the spirit with which you do it. I wish you well with your balancing acts and any new ventures that may or may not come to fruition..

A1 tennis academy · Satellite level

Could it be used as an opportunity to highlight lack of funding and financial struggle and give PR to national team tennis which is struggling

skibbarriz · Strong Club Player

I much enjoyed that post by Steven.

Yes, Jamie Baker was by far the best commentator again, and has been for every recent Davis Cup.

Lloyd, Castle and Inverdale will all recycle same few topics, such as how lower ranked players don't make much money. That one is not news to them or the audience, but they say it because they haven't got anything new or insightful to say. Because they don't following the sport and the British scene closely. They can't talk to the audience for 5 mins on Jay Clarke, Freya or Burrage. So instead they'll talk about Federer.

Interviewer: So John Lloyd, what did you think about the whole Burrage and Appleton applying then withdrawing from the Gators?
JL: Say what now?

Steven, you would be a great addition to the commentary roster.

JonH · All-time great

steven wrote:
wimdledont wrote:
Hi Steven,

If you were actually looking for a paid role which could monetise your knowledge...

After the DC, it strikes me that the BBC is desperately in need of a researcher to brief their commentary teams. If you could negotiate a fee of 10% of Lloyd/Castle, and prevent them sounding quite so ignorant on live television for several hours, that could well be worth your while, and you'd surely be doing the nation a service. You'd need to knock on/kick down the door...
LOL it's a very attractive idea and a couple of people said much the same thing on Twitter at the weekend (I don't think either of them was you, so you make three) - my guess is they already have a researcher, who may well be quite decent, but Lloyd/Castle just ignore them in favour of chuntering on inanely.
Wasn't it great that Bouncy was AWOL last weekend, by the way? I don't hate him as much as some people seem to, but boy oh boy is he irritating on commentary. (I assume he's aimed at people with only a passing interest in tennis rather than people like us, and I do wonder whether they find him as irritating as we do - of course, even if they find him interesting, we know he spends a lot of the time misinforming them, or at best presenting opinion as fact)
So nice to have Jamie Baker giving us the odd break from JL too, JB is very good indeed.
Of course, if I did that and they continued to chunter on regardless, Bouncy might have to do his favourite job - apologising for vaguely audible swearing, except that in this case, it wouldn't be coming from one of the players!
I'm not actively looking for a way to monetise my tennis knowledge (I have other fish to finish frying at the moment) but that doesn't mean I wouldn't be tempted if the assignment was interesting and I would negotiate if someone was asking me to do significant work for them.
As for the thing that started this thread, I'm not going to say exactly what's happened since (it wouldn't be fair to at least one of the other party or me to do so) but we had a useful dialogue, so the idea didn't die an immediate death as I thought it might. Watch this space, I guess ...

As an aside, Castle was there I am sure? He was in studio with Sue Barker and i am sure he commentated on at least one match that I watched on the red button

steven · Tennis legend

Ah, maybe Castle was there, then - I was following the tie in various ways over the weekend and may have missed the times he was on TV commentary or been too tied up in the matches to notice!

I don't think commentating is easy (though it's easier on TV than on the radio - the radio commentators are the real stars) and I'm sure if I tried to do it, I wouldn't be very fluent and I'd say all kinds of things I'd be kicking myself for afterwards, but what gets me about people like Castle and Lloyd is how transparently obvious they make it that they take no real interest in keeping up with what's going on in between commentary gigs (apart from what the very top players are doing, I mean) and can't even be bothered to do any specific research when they are going to commentate - the fact that they make this so obvious even when the BBC probably employs someone to do this research for them is even more ridiculous.

The commentators who aren't former players tend to be far more knowledgeable and better-prepared but they don't tend to get the biggest matches, at least not on TV. Of course, some former players are excellent too (Jamie Baker being just one example) but it seems all too easy for former players (especially the older ones) to coast.