Katie and Cam are our representatives in the last ever Hopman Cup 

José Morgado
@josemorgado
Teams now COMPLETE for Hopman Cup 2019

SUI - Federer/Bencic
GER - Zverev/Kerber
USA - Tiafoe/S. Williams
GRE - Tsitsipas/Sakkari
ESP - Ferrer/Muguruza
FRA - Pouille/Cornet
GBR - Norrie/Boulter
AUS - Ebden/Barty
2:34 am · 3 Oct 2018

I'm posting this article here mainly as a marker of Katie's achievement in reaching the top 100.

www.skysports.com/tennis/news/12110/11527211/katie-boulter-breaks-into-worlds-top-100

metro.co.uk/2019/01/12/british-tennis-ace-katie-boulter-links-david-beckham-neymars-agent-8336274/

That's really interesting data, even those not involving GB players like e.g. Wang Qiang, 27 years old, now in the top 20, but never even been in to the 2nd week of a slam yet. Her exploits in Asia last year give her the platform to do so, but she'll be more likely to excel at the hard court slams.

JonH wrote:

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http://tennisabstract.com/reports/WTA_BestWhoHavent.html

 

Katie Boulter is the 3rd highest ranked player with no Premier level wins , and 3rd highest ranked with no WTA semifinal place to her name

Opportunity or millstone?

Like Cam, I suspect it says they have done well accumulating points at less heady levels and if they can make that breakthrough, then a big rise could follow.

 

Edit - apologies, I linked the ATp data originally and not the WTA! 

-- Edited by JonH on Friday 25th of January 2019 04:43:24 PM

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I just think Katie is just catching up in terms of her development, having a year out through injury in her late teens at one of the key points of transition cant be under estimated in terms of how it stalled her progression. That I think is why she is in this category.

Given the way she is playing now and that her points tally has come from consistent performances at a slightly lower tier ie dominating the players at that level I am very optimistic she will continue to progress, her ranking may stall ie flatten as she will have to play better players to win the same number of points. We saw that with Kyle accompanied by lots of ill informed bleating about lack of progression but Katy mentally was spot on at the Fed Cup, a very exciting player, really looking forward to following her over the next few years. 

Separately re Kyle, I certainly was one who was concerned about his progress for a while with issues I set out re such as falling away in 3rd sets against top 50 players and presence on. court.

Since IMHO this was thoughtful and considered ( and wanting him to distinctly improve in these areas) I am sure those "ill-informed" folk must be elsewhere   ( are we taking the Challenger level stuff seriously? ) 

Last year I was pleased to see more presence and Kyle winning more matches against high ranked opponents and significantly quite a number of these being in tight 3 set matches. To me he notably progressed. 

I don't though think that was a given to happen ( and Kyle himself mentioned these issues as needing addressed which I recall then maybe rather ironically brought some praise for his self awareness   ) . I had simply previously expressed my own concerns about these matters at the times I did, as indeed in what I think was Oakland's first year on the forum genuine concerns about what to me ( and not just me) seemed a very mixed up schedule.

Anyway just saying.

 

Edit : though perhaps it was just one of these days ... 

-- Edited by indiana on Wednesday 6th of March 2019 02:08:53 AM

I am really hopeful about the whole core of players in development at the moment and feel a very high proportion of the group will become ATP and WTA players. We havent really had a phenome since Andy. Kyles trajectory as a teenager with the relative age of those on tour, the relative impotence of the preceding generation and his performance relative to his contemporaries did mark him out as a top 20 likely top 10 player during his peak years. It is very very early days for Jack Draper but he probably sits between Kyle and Andy at this stage. His progress will be very exciting to watch and hopefully something we can all enjoy. We have not had a player as talented as Cam go to college before so watching his progress through college tennis and then explosion through Challengers onto the ATP tour has been a privilege. In a way I would have liked to have seen George and Anton follow the same route, I think it would have worked well for them both. Jay is still young and consolidating himself as a top challenger player bringing himself to the cusp of full time ATP play, this I feel is the most opaque period of development and generally requires a closer eye on performance as opposed to ranking and point generation.

I dont see Katie being quite on the Kyle trajectory in part because a good chunk of the journey is missing, we dont know her peak performance level as a junior, she was rising fast and then a nasty injury, prolonged time out and start again. Katie has an exciting game and a real weapon in her height and serve, giving her both pace and angles other players do not have. Unfortunately it is neutered a bit because unlike with men its easy to practice against as you just find a male tennis player who hits it as hard and that is relatively straight forward.

Exciting times when you also factor in Harriet, Katie S, Emma R, Gaby and Fran. I know we focus on Frans results against her able bodied contemporaries, she is just another extremely talented youngster, but the fact that she is in transition as the best U.K. player of her generation is beyond amazing.