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Post Info TOPIC: Week 45 - ITF ($25K) - Shrewsbury, GB Hard


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Week 45 - ITF ($25K) - Shrewsbury, GB Hard


I agree, Indy.

The problem is that we are always looking down the pipeline.

There's a few decent prospects - which is great. But prospects are prospects. No more.

As The Guardian said a few years ago:

"Not every precocious youngster goes on to greatness, but Golding is not the only British player who has turned away from tennis. George Morgan, Ashley Hewitt and Jack Carpenter do not feature in the ATP rankings."

And The Independent also a few years back:

"but there is optimism that a group of promising teenagers led by Oliver Golding, George Morgan, Jack Carpenter and James Marsalek can eventually be successful."

It's always going to happen, never happening.

And, frankly, with the numbers we have, it's not going to happen either. One or two may do very well, and that'll be great. But that's hardly a gamechanger.

Like you implied in another post, Indy, I am actually more pleased by the success of the Katy/ies/Harriet/Gabi group, and the potential of Jodie, Freya and indeed Eden, Beth, Maia, than the possible superstar success of Fran or Emma (and certainly the very distant possible success of Matilda Mut., say).

Without a solid group, we just lurch from one lone headline player to the next.

It's pretty feeble.

However, I still defend the point that sometimes you have to look at the good points and take pleasure in that, without pointing out the obvious caveats, because otherwise it just gets repetitive and it a given, anyway.



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While to me Tom was not unfair re the girls, yes indeed there are good groups and good individuals who are going to be very interesting and rewarding to follow.

I hope to do that much more than moan about why not more and the cyclical / random nature of what comes through and the current lack of girls coming through. Honest 



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The thing is, netball and hockey have been mentioned prior, but I'd be quite confident in thinking that all of Dunne, Dart, Taylor and Broady would have received more money just from that Wimbledon wildcard defeat alone than an above average netball Superleague player would get the entire year. Hockey is barely on the TV outside of the Olympics and the odd world cup and most of the best England players like Crista Cullen have second jobs.

I just find it strange when tennis is undoubtedly the premier women's sport in the world and we are one of 4 grand slam nations, hosting arguably the most prestigious and famous tournament in the world which is plastered all over the BBC network for 2 weeks, yet we've currently got one player in the top 90 (obviously being specific to fit my point, could have said 3 in top 100) and while I really like Jo and am chuffed she is representing us, if we're being technical, that one player had nothing to do with Britain until she was 14 (parents, birthplace, living etc.).

The group after that isn't too bad, although Katy and Naomi are likely to drop out of the top 250 pretty soon, but it's after that where it is so so weak. Sam and particularly EWS are coming towards the end of their careers. Maia and Jodie could well push on to where the likes of Harriet and Katy currently are in a couple of years, as might Fran who is obviously a couple of years younger, but how many others will? Freya has been top 300 before, but has flattered to deceive this year and lost 1 and 0 at last weeks home event. Can anyone really see the likes of Tiff and Ella breaking the top 3 or 400? Emily Appleton can't win a match at 25k level and at 25 years old and outside the top 500, how far realistically can Lissey go? 24 in the top 1000 is pretty poor for a country of 65 million with a decent sporting pedigree, hosting a prestigious tournament and having a great like Andy Murray being in the limelight and keeping it relevant for around 10 years.

I'm not really familiar with these U13 / U14s and as others say, a lot can happen with development at that age, Emma is a shining light, but the batch in general from 250-1000+ is concerning and qualifying results at the lower end like we saw last week and today certainly don't help matters.

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what is very harsh?
for every drip we have czech romania italy germany france etc have a torrent a half a dozen a throw
i aplaud and folow unfailingly our few all 25-30 that get ranked and allt those below that dont get nowhere like amelia stuart this last weeks two qr1 wins chufed to bits for her i love that personal story and sucess it never add up to nothing in tems of gb tennis 'glory' but i think it great
but we shoud have the other two the wait of numbers that our peers have and we dont
in all those countries other sports overtake tennis and take the best prospects
romania czech slovak etc poor and bad wether but they sucede if they can why not us?
if our infrastructure is poor why is it not fixed this aint new why 20-30-40-50 years why is the infrastrutre not there because every one say it imposible but others find the way we giving up before we even try to start becasue it all seem a bit difficult
us college route is a bane on gb tennis
its great chance for those that do it but not in terms of tennis as a profeshian
i glad they get good educaton and carer prospects and good on them for taking the chance but none of them have a carer in tennis
sam murray closest and she was unlucky with injury when she was pushing her best ranks mite have made top 100 with a fair wind
most college players get 250-300 and top out
even the us national college players dont do nothing the exceptions notabel and proving the rule anderson burdette gibbs norrie but there are literaly hundreds or thousands college players from top tier down to very mediocre let not pretend that the colleges some of ours go to are great prospects they good enough to mostly play in smaler division for regional colleges the education is the long term benefit here not the coaching towards a prospect pro carer in tennis
we breeding a genereation that see tennis as a chance to get good education on scolarship and there a place for that but we need to multiply the number that aim for tennis as acarer and are good enough to get top 200+ by a factor of 3-4 to match those other nations that are so like us except they produce they productions line is churning ours is rusted over and this why we drool over laura or hev or katie or emma because in each wave generatian or cycel we only realy get 1 player that might make it to the big stage
sure we love and follow our low players here in this place but tennis at large needs the headline makers and we got none or one most of the time
what is very harsh about that - what is harsh about asking why we do so bad compared to the others and no longer setling for it? why is emma not joined by 5 more? why is katie and fran not joined by 3 more?
we at a good ebb right now 8 in top 300 strong showing for us
france in a tizzy becasue they only got 100 top 300
germany wondering why they only got a dozen why tennis has fallen out of faver and will kerber inspire them back to they old suces
slovak 5.4M populatian got 7 top 300
czech got 16 top 300
all these numbers separate from us even more if you go top 500 900 or in to top 100 etc and we at a good point historicly right now
what is very unfair about this questiong? what is unfair at all?
respectfuly i think caling it very unfair is part if the atitude part of the reason why we fail you can ask why we lag our peers so awful badly and it not any disrespect to any of our players whether they ranked or not high or low they all do there best and we greatful for each and every one and if we had 100 rank players id still love the one that got a first qr1 win this week
it just asking why aint there more why are we not equal to our peers. very unfair? how? i say that with no malice and no offence i dont get why we setel for this

god writeing so much really make my head hurt ho hum

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To be honest, having a second glance, the results today were generally more respectable than last week (which were awful) and well done to Iman for winning a set but it is still slim pickings outside those that are more familiar.

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TomTraubert wrote:

what is very harsh?
for every drip we have czech romania italy germany france etc have a torrent a half a dozen a throw
i aplaud and folow unfailingly our few all 25-30 that get ranked and allt those below that dont get nowhere like amelia stuart this last weeks two qr1 wins chufed to bits for her i love that personal story and sucess it never add up to nothing in tems of gb tennis 'glory' but i think it great
but we shoud have the other two the wait of numbers that our peers have and we dont
in all those countries other sports overtake tennis and take the best prospects
romania czech slovak etc poor and bad wether but they sucede if they can why not us?
if our infrastructure is poor why is it not fixed this aint new why 20-30-40-50 years why is the infrastrutre not there because every one say it imposible but others find the way we giving up before we even try to start becasue it all seem a bit difficult
us college route is a bane on gb tennis
its great chance for those that do it but not in terms of tennis as a profeshian
i glad they get good educaton and carer prospects and good on them for taking the chance but none of them have a carer in tennis
sam murray closest and she was unlucky with injury when she was pushing her best ranks mite have made top 100 with a fair wind
most college players get 250-300 and top out
even the us national college players dont do nothing the exceptions notabel and proving the rule anderson burdette gibbs norrie but there are literaly hundreds or thousands college players from top tier down to very mediocre let not pretend that the colleges some of ours go to are great prospects they good enough to mostly play in smaler division for regional colleges the education is the long term benefit here not the coaching towards a prospect pro carer in tennis
we breeding a genereation that see tennis as a chance to get good education on scolarship and there a place for that but we need to multiply the number that aim for tennis as acarer and are good enough to get top 200+ by a factor of 3-4 to match those other nations that are so like us except they produce they productions line is churning ours is rusted over and this why we drool over laura or hev or katie or emma because in each wave generatian or cycel we only realy get 1 player that might make it to the big stage
sure we love and follow our low players here in this place but tennis at large needs the headline makers and we got none or one most of the time
what is very harsh about that - what is harsh about asking why we do so bad compared to the others and no longer setling for it? why is emma not joined by 5 more? why is katie and fran not joined by 3 more?
we at a good ebb right now 8 in top 300 strong showing for us
france in a tizzy becasue they only got 100 top 300
germany wondering why they only got a dozen why tennis has fallen out of faver and will kerber inspire them back to they old suces
slovak 5.4M populatian got 7 top 300
czech got 16 top 300
all these numbers separate from us even more if you go top 500 900 or in to top 100 etc and we at a good point historicly right now
what is very unfair about this questiong? what is unfair at all?
respectfuly i think caling it very unfair is part if the atitude part of the reason why we fail you can ask why we lag our peers so awful badly and it not any disrespect to any of our players whether they ranked or not high or low they all do there best and we greatful for each and every one and if we had 100 rank players id still love the one that got a first qr1 win this week
it just asking why aint there more why are we not equal to our peers. very unfair? how? i say that with no malice and no offence i dont get why we setel for this

god writeing so much really make my head hurt ho hum


Some very fair points in there Tom and simply hosting Wimbledon alone you'd think / hope would add more numbers to the production line - I'd hate to think what it would be like if we didn't have that.



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Just a couple of points:
Hockey is the fastest growing female sport in the country.
You are comparing GB to the elite countries in the world. We are a middle of the road nation and will continue that way.

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paulisi wrote:

Just a couple of points:
Hockey is the fastest growing female sport in the country.
You are comparing GB to the elite countries in the world. We are a middle of the road nation and will continue that way.


hockey - so? still plenty talent left for potenshail tennis players to come through all other nations have other sports draining talent away from tennis to
what mesure you use to say czech slovak romania 'elite' if they can become elite we shoud be able to as well with greater population and resource these countries do great and punch above there weight but that no reason to say we have to punch so far below ours
i agre we MOR and will continue tht way AS LONG as people continue to beleave that is all we can ever be and not even bother to try to change it
given all the factors there is no reson why we must be MOR we should be if not better than at least on a similar par to our peers and arent
you seem to just say thats the way it is dont bother trying to change it i cant agre with that defeatist satisfaction in medicrity im afraid tho it is a common view amongst the gb tennis system powers that be "well never be as good as them so just dont get your hopes up, best not to try at least we dont fail to meet expectatians if those expectatians are kept real low"
we can and shoud do better



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Back to the action..........

Maia in a bit of a hurry this morning - takes the first set 6-0 in 25 minutes.

Short write-up on the action today
https://www.shropshirelive.com/sport/2018/11/05/british-no-9-maia-lumsden-among-the-first-day-winners-at-the-shrewsbury-club/#.W9_5nbcTWMQ.twitter



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Victory would secure a place in the main draw to be conducted during a civic reception at Budgen Motors on Featherbed Lane this evening.

Big Time!!

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seagull wrote:

Victory would secure a place in the main draw to be conducted during a civic reception at Budgen Motors on Featherbed Lane this evening.

Big Time!!


I can see that this may not sound 'big time' but it is indicative of the effort which Shrewsbury put into their ITF events. I have been to virtually all the British ITF venues and I consider Shrewsbury to be, by far, the best! The players are made to feel special. Goodie bags are provided. Photos of past winners are displayed. Glossy informative programme.  Publicity is good so local supporters come to watch from the stands which are constructed for the last few days. Many other venues seem to consider their events as merely something to be tolerated.



-- Edited by telstar on Monday 5th of November 2018 12:11:34 PM

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paulisi wrote:

Just a couple of points:
Hockey is the fastest growing female sport in the country.
You are comparing GB to the elite countries in the world. We are a middle of the road nation and will continue that way.


So just accept that and don't compete to try and make tennis more accessible and bring some of the best young athletes into the sport? To aim to move up in the world.

Accept middle of the road, and indeed continue middle of the road ...

( essentially as Tom was saying )



-- Edited by indiana on Monday 5th of November 2018 11:31:03 AM

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indiana wrote:
paulisi wrote:

Just a couple of points:
Hockey is the fastest growing female sport in the country.
You are comparing GB to the elite countries in the world. We are a middle of the road nation and will continue that way.


So just accept that and don't compete to try and make tennis more accessible and bring some of the best athletes into tennis ? 

Accept middle of the road, continue middle of the road ...


 Yes. This was Tom's point to paulisi - why are we middle of the road? Why aren't one of the top ones? It's no good just saying coz that's what we are.

And, of course, none of this would really matter if tennis were a poor sport, with no resources.

But the LTA's financial reports say that they received £60.6 m in revenues last year. Although it's expenditure was £68m...... of which about half was in 'commercial, major events and marketing'.

 

Of course, as always, in ten years' time we're going to be all hunky-dory and top of the pyramid (heard that before???):

"During 2017 we established the guiding principles which will take this forward resulting in the launch of our new Performance Strategy at the outset of 2018. This is a ten year vision for British Tennis that aims to make Great Britain one of the most respected nations in the world for player development."



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Maia wins 6-0 6-2

The Shrewsbury club has posted a few (very short) video clips of Maia in action
https://twitter.com/shrewsbury_club



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Ha, as well as editing to acknowledge that I was really just saying what Tom had said in more detail, I added "aim to move up in the world".

And here CD gives the latest "aim" ( there have been many written aims and targets over the years ) but how much is just words again, how much conviction is there, how many inspirational people in key positions that can lead to improvements and real effort to follow through on the prose?

Against that how many continue to think and accept middle of the road?



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