Week 12 - ITF ($15K) - Tel Aviv, Israel Hard

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Week 12 - ITF ($15K) - Tel Aviv, Israel Hard

blob · All-time great

Coup Droit wrote:
But my argument would be that tennis is not linear, the benefits cannot be calculated so cleanly. Having more ranked players means more clubs, families, friends, coaches, other players, sponsors, events, all more directly connected to high level tennis. And this feeds through to the health of tennis in the country (and, thereby, results).

Only real question now is this: how do we get Coup Droit onto the board to enact their radical common sense based policy agenda?

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

blob wrote:
Coup Droit wrote:
But my argument would be that tennis is not linear, the benefits cannot be calculated so cleanly. Having more ranked players means more clubs, families, friends, coaches, other players, sponsors, events, all more directly connected to high level tennis. And this feeds through to the health of tennis in the country (and, thereby, results).
Only real question now is this: how do we get Coup Droit onto the board to enact their radical common sense based policy agenda?

smile

Peter too · Tennis legend

I don't know what the statistics are but I wouldn't be surprised to find that several of the players who never get much above 500 in the rankings end up as coaches in schools, local sports centres etc. and help to keep the sport going, a pyramid is easily blown over if its base is not wide enough.

-- Edited by Peter too on Monday 19th of March 2018 11:25:50 AM

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Peter too wrote:
I don't know what the statistics are but I wouldn't be surprised to find that several of the players who never get much above 500 in the rankings end up as coaches in schools, local sports centres etc. and help to keep the sport going, a pyramid is easily blown over if its base is not wide enough.

-- Edited by Peter too on Monday 19th of March 2018 11:25:50 AM

Absolutely. And as per the thread about family connections, it is not surprising that many of the players who 'only' get to be on the fringe of an ITF pro ranking then go on to become parents of top players, i.e. Andy Murray's mother, Katie Boulter's mother, Emily Appleton's father, etc. etc. Lose those players from tennis to another sport and their children will most likely end up in another sport too.

indiana · Tennis legend

Very well articulated, CD !

Our current ranked players from GB #20 on.

20/658 A Barnett 33 points
21/690 F Jones 29
22/713 E Arbuthnott 26
23/732 S Larkin 24

24/1010 M Njoze 9
25/1014 O Nicholls 8
26/1030 T Williams 8
27/1056 L Sainsbury 7 ( due to leave rankings on 09/04 )
28/1085 A Gillan 6
29/1113 L Deigman 5 ( could leave rankings on 30/07 )
30/1139 E Taylor 5
31/1153 M Foster 4 ( due to leave rankings on 09/04 )
32/1179 E Hurst 4 ( could leave rankings on 13/08 )
33/1214 A Pitak 3 ( could leave rankings on 18/06 )

As mentioned there has not been much activity at all recently from these outside the top 1000 for understandable reasons. Laura D and Manisha have now chosen to study. Olivia is one who has added a further point and will go up to 9.

I have added info re these who on could be down to less than 3 counters before September. Others theoretically could follow through September and October with 15/10 being the theoretical date when we could be down to 24 ranked players and not fill a top 25 table ( extremely unlikely, especially with the grass season to come, but theoretically possible if no points added by players 'at risk' ). Now probably figures not too far from these could have been produced in previous years but then we could have more confidence that the lower ranked would pick up points and we also usually had a number of unranked players sitting on 2 counters. We currently have 14 players on one counter but none on 2 counters.

The base of the pyramid is being steadily eroded and, having I believe kept the number at a pretty steady low to mid 30s for a number of years, our number of ranked players could be about to tumble ( even before the planned ITF changes ) with the message being left that without very clear early talent and getting 'in' or independent means there are currently very limited prospects to get on the ladder.

Michael D · All-time great

Coup Droit wrote:
Peter too wrote:
I don't know what the statistics are but I wouldn't be surprised to find that several of the players who never get much above 500 in the rankings end up as coaches in schools, local sports centres etc. and help to keep the sport going, a pyramid is easily blown over if its base is not wide enough.

-- Edited by Peter too on Monday 19th of March 2018 11:25:50 AM

Absolutely. And as per the thread about family connections, it is not surprising that many of the players who 'only' get to be on the fringe of an ITF pro ranking then go on to become parents of top players, i.e. Andy Murray's mother, Katie Boulter's mother, Emily Appleton's father, etc. etc. Lose those players from tennis to another sport and their children will most likely end up in another sport too.

Yes, and the flip of that is, if you have a child that is interested to play the sport, for that child to progress they really need relatively steady and consistent coaching, and for most parents that's very hard to manage financially. So it's no wonder that those kids whose parents can play a more direct coaching role are often those that progress more effectively at younger ages.

Michael D · All-time great

Back to the tennis, congrats to Danielle for qualifying easily for the main draw. May she get a reasonable draw to allow her to have a crack at that second point.

FQR: Danielle DALEY (GBR) UNR 17yrs (JCH:858 Jan 18) beat Pauline WUARIN (SUI) UNR (=CH) 6-1 6-2

skibbarriz · Strong Club Player

Coup Droit wrote:
I'm sure that, on a linear basis, the LTA couldn't give two hoots.
If putting on 15ks means that players like Jazzamay get ranked 800 or so, instead of not getting ranked at all, probably makes not a whit of difference to them.
In fact, it probably backs up their argument that they're not worth it.

But my argument would be that tennis is not linear, the benefits cannot be calculated so cleanly. Having more ranked players means more clubs, families, friends, coaches, other players, sponsors, events, all more directly connected to high level tennis. And this feeds through to the health of tennis in the country (and, thereby, results).

The benefits of having a tennis culture, absolutely, as exists in France. But there are plenty of issues in Britian like the limited accessibility of the sport and the general culture of tennis in Britain compared with in other countries. There exist plenty of possible top down changes that would have a positive impact on tennis culture in Britian. Arguing about the provision of half a dozen $15k's is like being primarliy concerned with pushing something from 21% efficiency to 24%. The thing remains fairly broken. One would have to think a bunch of other issues aren't fundamentally bigger problems to concern yourself uppermost with this one.

In terms of what ills British tennis, the essence of the problem remains the people in charge. Not overly with any single apsect of how they run things.

blob · All-time great

Danielle going great guns

2 of the MD spots for Q look reasonable

Michael D · All-time great

Yes Q players not yet placed, but Alicia has her draw.

Danielle now placed too, against Kana Daniel (Taro's brother), who beat Olivia last week in the second round.

R32: Alicia BARNETT (GBR) 658 vs Dasha IVANOVA (USA) 702 (CH:577 Aug 17)

R32: Danielle DALEY (GBR) UNR 17yrs vs Kana DANIEL (USA) 851 (CH:799 April 13)

-- Edited by Michael D on Monday 19th of March 2018 02:57:21 PM

Michael D · All-time great

Also interesting to see that although Olivia withdrew from singles qualifying, she is still here and playing with Alicia again in the doubles... They take on the 4th seeds first up.

blob · All-time great

Danielle did not get one of the favourable Q spots. She got Taro Daniel's sister - the one that beat Olivia last week

Michael D · All-time great

blob wrote:
Danielle did not get one of the favourable Q spots. She got Taro Daniel's sister - the one that beat Olivia last week

Yes, unfortunate, it will be tough for her to get a second point in this match up, but who knows cry smile

telstar · Strong Club Player

Exactly the same pair as they beat 4 and 3 in the first round last week in Israel!