January 2018

nickw811 · Social player

January 2018

blob · All-time great

nickw811 wrote:
[...] Mine has to be Alfie reaching world number 1!

That's a good shout.

Been pretty sparse for highlights from the ladies... erm... some of Naomi's commentaries were good on R5L?

indiana · Tennis legend

Ah, bar Kyle and ...

Probably some of Liam's and Emily App's performances. But Kyle massively above all.

seagull · Hall of fame

Beating palace in the cup

nickw811 · Social player

blob wrote:
nickw811 wrote:
[...] Mine has to be Alfie reaching world number 1!
That's a good shout.
Been pretty sparse for highlights from the ladies... erm... some of Naomi's commentaries were good on R5L?

I've loved Naomi's commentary! I did a blog post about the 3 big stories from January that perhaps got overlooked: https://thebigracket.org/2018/01/30/3-british-stories-you-may-have-missed-in-january/

2 mentions for Broady...

Oakland2002 · All-time great

January was not a bad month for a couple of our juniors indeed not since Katie Swan has anyone reached the peaks of Aidans runs in both Traralgon and the Junior AO, both more than decent putting him in the worlds top 10 juniors along with Emma Radacanus consecutive school holiday wins in India putting her on the cusp of the worlds top 100 having turned 15 in November.

skibbarriz · Strong Club Player

Ignoring Kyle, then it's McHugh showing further signs of his talent.

indiana · Tennis legend

Yes, Aidan is a good shout that I would have added if I had been more awake.

Strongbow · All-time great

skibbarriz wrote:
Ignoring Kyle, then it's McHugh showing further signs of his talent.

Apart from Kyle and Aidan there's been precious little to cheer about smile Everybody else seems to be going backwards

Oakland2002 · All-time great

A bit harsh, one would hope that the younger players ie. those in development will have been working on areas of potential improvement through November and December and are now trying them out in competition or beginning to work them into their games. Kyle, Aidan and Emma (whose rank is based almost entirely on singles points) have had outstanding starts. Jack Draper and Sean Hodkin put in decent performances in Glasgow, Jack and George experienced the junior AO as 16 year olds, time is on their side even in Juniors. Jay is establishing himself as a challenger player. Jonny Gray is hitting with the DC squad as is Cam Norrie who having turned pro in time for Wimbledon in January played Australian Open qualifying for the first time (on rank).

By definition in Tennis the objective outcomes are binary and as we know particularly in player development it is not necessarily the case that when the general objective change is negative that the player is going backwards the devil is in the detail a lot of which is subjective

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

I agree, Oakie. January is a weird month, not really a whole month in the first place (very few tournaments in week 1), and often not a major part of players' programmes because, as you say, they are just getting back from their training blocks. Certain players (Beth Grey, Ola Pitak, and many others) haven't even played competitively yet.
Freya beat a top 200 player yesterday. Maia got a good win. Alicia Barnet got an excellent win, too. Ryan Storrie made an ITF Semi-final, Nell Miller has had a couple of extremely promising scores, seem to remember that Billy Harris got a CH win, as did Luke Bambridge (or close), Connor Thomson has had an excellent run in juniors, Tiran Sanghera beat a top-600 (?) player, Liam beat Dustin, Emily App made a final, I think ....
In short, it's true that some of these were not followed up on in terms of maxing the points but, on a single player basis, the signs for each (and some others, I'm sure) are encouraging and they count as a good month for them.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

I am struggling to look beyond Kyle's achievement so I will leave it at that.

blob · All-time great

I think it's perfectly fair to make an evaluation based on what did happen though.

I'm referencing the women, as that's where my personal knowledge most lies:
Plenty of our players did play (24 active women - including 8 of our 2017 year end top 10). How did they do? Not great.
Some had personal slightly positive signs (Heather won a lot of matches compared to the end of last year, or the same time last year, but lost the most significant ones; Emily Appleton had two good runs, made another final, but again did not make the break through with her first singles title).
But there wasn't much else to go around. In 21 of 36 tournament entries that were complete in January, our player lost their opening match; 6 of those 21 to lower ranked players.

Just being January isn't a very good reason - it does contain a Grand Slam. Though on the ITF it is certainly slower.
Nevertheless, were this the German or French forum, or that of any other nation we might reasonably consiedr our tennis peers, they could easily review their January, and not discount it as the start of the new year.
For example:
Germany: Kerber progress, title in Sydney and a GS SF, Goerges winning in Auckland; Lisicki winning matches!
France: Mladenovic winning GS doubles, Cornet has started winning matches again - made a Premier QF; Fiona Ferro made a $60K SF on a WC; Cakarevic, Ramialison both won titles

Heck! Even Luxembourg won an ITF title in January

So, January is fair game, without caveat.

But.. here's something we all seem to be forgetting... Heather made a WTA SF!

Oakland2002 · All-time great

But we have introduced a caveat ie ignoring Kyles fantastic breakthrough performance in a slam. I am with Bob that alone is enough for me.

On the mens side our best player is injured and next best suspended without those minor niggles it could have been Antipodean domination by the Brits.

indiana · Tennis legend

Oakland2002 wrote:
But we have introduced a caveat ie ignoring Kyles fantastic breakthrough performance in a slam. I am with Bob that alone is enough for me.

On the mens side our best player is injured and next best suspended without those minor niggles it could have been Antipodean domination by the Brits.

Indeed, the first month will do for me

Generally early doors, but as pointed out for some the month did include the rather important matter of a Slam and Kyle made that big breakthrough there.