Entries Week 10 - 05/03/18

Michael D · All-time great

RE: Entries Week 10 - 05/03/18

indiana · Tennis legend

While the other Masters events generally have 24 pair men's doubles fields ( and personally I dislike having byes rather than have a 32 pair draw even for shorter Masters events ) last year ( and I am guessing previously too ) both Indian Wells and Miami had 32 pair fields with no byes.

So I am surprised if that is different this year. There is indeed no need for it.

wolf · Tennis legend

It is still 32, there are on site entries as well.

JonH · All-time great

I have to apologise i'm not sure to be honest, the entry list shows 22 listed so it may be there are few wild cards, onsite entries and qualies to make a 32 field. Would make sense. Either way, kyle and Neal stand 3 off getting in currently.

As an aside, with various highly ranked players not playing, kyle is 5 or so off a top 16 seed! Presumably he will get a bye to round two regardless if this is still a 96 draw? A good week and he could even get a top 16 seed in miami?!

-- Edited by JonH on Sunday 4th of March 2018 09:29:10 PM

-- Edited by JonH on Sunday 4th of March 2018 09:29:24 PM

indiana · Tennis legend

It will be a 96 man draw with 32 seeds getting byes into R2.

If Kyle wins his opening R2 match, then in R3/L32 as a 17 to 24 seed he will take on a 9 to 16 seed if they win through their own R2 match. Of course to an extent some of the rankings and hence seeds are a bit all over the place with the men just now.

Definitely possible for him to be a top 16 seed in Miami. Suspect it would indeed still need a rather good week. The live rankings will give more idea once they are shown allowing for points coming off from Indian Wells last year and we can see the net possibilities of points being added on. Kyle has just 25 points to drop from last year.

As discussed before, with Miami, like Indian Wells, having a late in the week start, it is traditionally the post Indian Wells rankings that will apply for Miami seedings.

-- Edited by indiana on Sunday 4th of March 2018 10:00:05 PM

Jaggy1876 · Grand Slam Champion

As we are now back to discussing the main event in Indian Wells it will be interesting to see how Kyle responds to being British number 1, due entirely to Andy being injured, coupled with his good form and challenger like fortunate draw he paved at the Aus Open.

This US hard court stretch is the time to see if he can rise to the challenge of being our top player or will a 70 per cent Andy Murray take that back in the summer.

Will certainly be an interesting 6 months or so with Dan coming back to see the respective trajectory of our 3 top guys with Cam creeping up peering from behind the door.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

You are a hard task master Jaggy LOL. If beating Kevin Anderson and Grigor Dimitrov counts as a "challenger like fortunate draw", I would hate to see an "ATP like tough draw".

As for the ranking, Kyle will be the first to admit that Andy is still the best GB player when fit and I don't think any sane person would argue with that. But I do think Kyle deserves credit for reaching WR 24. What will be interesting to see, is how quickly he can find again that new on court attitude that served him so well at the start of the year, as he comes back from his own injury break.

Edit

And as if to prove my point, here is a quote from Kyle in a Guardian article as linked by FlamingoWings in Kyle's dedicated thread.

Proud as I am, I would have been much happier had Andy stayed healthy and occupied his place at the very top where he belongs, Edmund said. I wish Andy a speedy recovery and I hope to battle it out with him in a more legitimate fashion in years to come.

-- Edited by Bob in Spain on Monday 5th of March 2018 07:39:06 AM

indiana · Tennis legend

As Bob says Andy is clearly still our best player. I'd expect anyone here to appreciate the difference at times between top ranked and top. They are often quite reasonably interchangeable but not always.

So Kyle does not have to somehow prove himself as our top player when he is purely the leading rankings player. I look forward to seeing how well he can do in upcoming tournaments and how he continues with that Aussie Open 'presence'. Hopefully he can progress well generally and it would be really good to see him continue to progress in the world rankings. In the circumstances, his overtaking of Andy in the rankings is a passing point of note, but their ongoing comparative positions largely irrelevant until Andy has been back a while hopefully fit and well. Kyle's own WR is the only rankings issue he need concern himself with. And even then just as a reasonable indication of his tennis progress and the draw advantages that can come with it,

Whatever one thinks of his Australian Open draw and eventual stage he reached, clearly he did well, and to read how he is being almost denigrated for daring to have gone ahead of Andy in the rankings, when Andy's injury is nothing to do with him, is truly IMO rather ridiculous.

I suspect / really hope the author actually knows most / all of that though. Anyway response given.

-- Edited by indiana on Monday 5th of March 2018 03:14:14 PM

JonH · All-time great

indiana wrote:
It will be a 96 man draw with 32 seeds getting byes into R2.

If Kyle wins his opening R2 match, then in R3/L32 as a 17 to 24 seed he will take on a 9 to 16 seed if they win through their own R2 match. Of course to an extent some of the rankings and hence seeds are a bit all over the place with the men just now.
Definitely possible for him to be a top 16 seed in Miami. Suspect it would indeed still need a rather good week. The live rankings will give more idea once they are shown allowing for points coming off from Indian Wells last year and we can see the net possibilities of points being added on. Kyle has just 25 points to drop from last year.
As discussed before, with Miami, like Indian Wells, having a late in the week start, it is traditionally the post Indian Wells rankings that will apply for Miami seedings.

-- Edited by indiana on Sunday 4th of March 2018 10:00:05 PM

It will be very interesting to see and these three weeks will probably give us a first clue as to who the real form players are on the circuit.

The top in the ATP race this week are:

Federer

Cilic

Chung

Schwatrzmann

Edmund

Del Potro

Bautista Agut

Dimitrov

with Anderson, Pouille, Fognini, and Thiem just behind and then a gap at the moment of 160 points back to Berdych in 13th. If any of those 12 can get a decent run at one or other of the events, they can make themselves early contenders to at least be in the running all year for the end of year events, so a big week or two.

NB two Argentinians in the top 8 mens Race at the moment, good to see. Once we get on clay, a few of those names will also fancy making some points as well

JonH · All-time great

The men's qualies draws are out at Indian Wells. Cam plays Christian Harrison, Liam has gombos