With the grass season about to start in two weeks time, I felt it might be good to have a bit of fun. I wondered which British player, male or female, would have the most MAIN DRAW wins in a world ranking event (in the UK) over the grass court season.
To remind folks, these are:
Week 23 - Surbiton Trophy - men and women
Week 24 - Manchester Trophy - womens only event
Week 24 - WTA Nottingham Open and ATP Nottingham Trophy Challenger - women and men
Week 25 - ATP Queens - men
Week 25 - WTA Birmingham - women
Week 25 - Ilkley Trophy - men and women
Week 26 - WTA Eastbourne and ATP Eastbourne - women and men
Week 26 - WTA Southsea - women only
Week 27/28 - Wimbledon - men and women
So in total there are 6 mens events and 8 womens events. The poll is to predict which mens OR womens (1 player) will win the most main draw matches over the course of these events,.Not qualifying , main draw only. Remember some of the events are ATP or WTA full tour and quite high level events, so it maybe you think someone will shine at that level and take advantage of a wild card or two. One event is a grand slam of course. But 3 mens and 4 ladies events are at the Challenger level / lower level tier and thus might be easier for some of our ladies and men to take advantage. And will Andy be back??!
To be realistic I have listed our top ten men and top ten ladies. Some of you may think someone outside the top ten will come good but lets face it , it is highly unlikely that will happen at main draw level so I think these 20 folks are the right ones. However, I made two exceptions - Dan Evans is really in our top ten and with all due respect to Farquharson I think it is reasonable to put Dan in! Ditto, on reflection, James Ward is a more realistic proposition than Brydan Klein and so hence he also replaces Brydan.
Couple of rules - if someone receives a bye, that doesn't count as a win; however, if someone gets a walkover, then for the purposes of this it will count as a win. As I understand it, that is how the ATP and WTA accumulate someones win/loss record on the tours, walkovers count as wins. If I am wrong on that, let me know someone and I won't count walkovers.
Hope this is a bit of fun!
I will try and provide updates each week as the grass season progresses. 6 weeks of mayhem!
Finally, I have put a close of two weeks today, which means Surbiton will have just started.
-- Edited by JonH on Wednesday 23rd of May 2018 09:03:25 AM
-- Edited by JonH on Friday 1st of June 2018 05:43:43 AM
Ive gone for Evo, though it will depend quite heavily on whether he gets MD WCs or not for the majority of events. If he has to fight through qualifying each week it might be tough to get too many wins in the MD but Id say hes probably out most natural player on grass, either male or female.
Ditto and similar thought process. I decided that if Evo does well this week, he will get those Challenger wild cards and hence...
I thought about splitting men and women into separate polls but decided it would actually be much more interesting to view them as a whole cohort.
In an ideal world one of the sponsors, Fever Tree or Nature Valley or Fusion 100 would pick this up and offer a prize to the top player on grass, doubt it will happen though !
Katie Swan is on fire at the moment. She is serving pain free for the first time in a while and she has the big serve and forehand for grass as long as she sticks to challengers, she is my pick.
On last year's form, Jo would be right up there with 12 wins (if not the winner - I haven't checked for anyone else). But I have a nagging doubt.
Some of the others will win a few, but the entry lists are all going to be tough, and I suspect half a dozen wins will be good going by anyone.
Having watched Evo today, I'm going for him, as I think he will go for all the match practice he can, and I'm sure he'll get wild cards if he wants or needs them.
Katie Swan is on fire at the moment. She is serving pain free for the first time in a while and she has the big serve and forehand for grass as long as she sticks to challengers, she is my pick.
I think Katie is a really good pick.
I think it has to be one of the 'lower' ranked players i.e. not Joko, coz it's got to be someone who's playing all the events - the lower ones as well as the WTAs (with wildcards into the MD).
Evo is obviously possible.
But I just went with a 'soft spot for an outsider' and voted for Harriet. (Gabi is pretty good on grass too).
And JonH, when you update your first thread you can delete all the edit lines at the bottom. That's what I do on the US college posts that are frequently amended otherwise you can end up with pages of edit....
And JonH, when you update your first thread you can delete all the edit lines at the bottom. That's what I do on the US college posts that are frequently amended otherwise you can end up with pages of edit....
So thought it was worth looking at previous years to see what pointers we have for this:
2015 - 43 wins in total (Surbiton had 14 main draw wins, Ilkley and Birmingham - women only - just 2).
1 A. Murray 10
2 J. Konta 6
3 J. Milton 5
4 B. Klein 4
H. Watson 4
N. Broady 4
7 A. Bedene 2
A. Carreras2
9 D. Rice 1
E. Webley-Smith1
H. Dart 1
J. Ward 1
L. Broady 1
T. Moore 1
What surprised me here was I had completely forgotten about Josh Milton, great year he had on the grass then. But as someone said before, mentioning 6 wins, only 2 players had 6 wins, and Andy came out top with 10. JK and Josh Milton both won matches in 3 different tournaments. 6 players managed to get 4 wins or more
2016 - 47 wins in total (11 at Wimbledon was the biggest haul, again Birmingham just had 2)
1 A. Murray 12
2 J. Konta 6
3 D. Evans 4
4 K. Edmund3
S. Murray 3
T. Moore 3
B. Klein 3
8 E. Corrie 2
A. Ward 2
J. Ward 2
11 A. Bedene 1
E. Appleton1
G. Taylor 1
H. Watson 1
J. O'Mara 1
L. Broady 1
M. Willis 1
This time Andy again of course dominated with 12 wins, Jo was 2nd again and once more only two players achieved 6 wins or more. This time just 3 players got 4 wins or more. JK again spread her wins across 4 events, Evo won matches in 3 events
2017 - 54 wins (progress each year with Wimbledon 14 wins, Surbiton 13 this time, zero wins at Queens or Southsea)
1 J. Konta 13 (4 Nottingham, 1 Birmingham, 3 Eastbourne, 5 Wimbledon - someone mentioned 12 above, so I hope I counted correctly and 13 is correct)
2 H. Watson 10
3 N. Broady 5
4 A. Murray 4
5 K. Dunne 3
H. Dart 3
7 C. Norrie 2
A. Bedene 2
D. Evans 2
G. Taylor 2
J. Clarke 2
12 B. Klein 1
K. Boulter 1
K. Edmund1
L. Glasspool1
L. Robson 1
M.Willis 1
This year Jo won, with Heather second. In the past 2 years men and women had equally split the top positions, in 2017 women dominated completely. Again only 2 players achieved 6 wins or more but only 4 players got 4 wins or more. In any other year Heather might have come out on top but Jo clearly had a special period on the grass last season. Once again JK spread here wins across 4 events, Heather and Naomi this time won in 3 events.
Make of it what you will. Reality is only 2 players seem to hit the 6 barrier each year. Surbiton and Wimbledon at either end produce the most winners over the 3 years by far, with Birmingham proving to be the least fruitful ground for our players, with Ilkley also close behind. It is all the wind and rain.
Just to add to the analysis above, roughly half of our annual wins each year (quite consistent in fact) on grass come from Surbiton and Wimbledon. Looks like the South West London suburbs is where our players feel at home.
-- Edited by JonH on Wednesday 23rd of May 2018 01:40:11 PM
Those who have voted will be able to see the results to date, for those who haven't, and no spoiler alert here, 24 members have voted and so far 10 players have received their votes. So half the player field. Looks like our allegiances are spread wide and far this season. And some of those without votes might surprise some folks!