Browsing through Wikipedia, and then the ATP site, I noticed that Martin is both the highest ranked brit without a Wikipedia article (any volunteers?), but also that he's not played outside of he UK since playing the Tumkur Challenger in India in September 2003.
Does anyone know why? Does he not like flying? Did he have one dodgy curry too many?
I also noticed that his 2004 activity was very low, and I remember USF saying that he hoped he'd be getting back to playing Challengers soon - was there some injury problems?
The ATP profile stops in 2001, unfortunately, his website hasn't been updated since 2002, and the LTA profile is very brief.
Martin went through over two years over injuries that appeared to knock the guts out of his career. Slowly, he's been coming back via the British futures and satellites getting his ranking up to inside the top 300. This week he should be out in Lanzarotte and then on to another Spanish challenger. I dont know how far Martin can get back up the rankings, I still hold out hope he can get back to the main ATP tour but his recovery has been very slow.
Thanks for filling me in Shhh. Best of Luck to Martin over the next few weeks - especially venturing forth from these shores. Still, any idea why he's not gone overseas at all until now?
Martin suffered a serious knee injury in late 2002 and he had a patella tendon operation in 2003 before resuming training. He made his comeback at the 2003 Surbiton Challenger where he lost in rd2 to Dave Sherwood in straight sets. He was granted a wildcard into Wimbledon and amazingly won the 1st set 6-1 against Spain's David Ferrer in only his 3rd tournament back. Unfortunately, Ferrer recovered to win the match in 4 sets. Martin played with little success in the States, Turkey and India until October 2003 when he suffered another injury which kept him out until Feb 2004. He played one match in qualifying for week 1 of the GB 1 satellite before injury struck again, he had to withdraw and was out until June 2004. All these injuries can take it's toll on a player's mind and Martin started to put on weight.
In August 2004 he reached a futures semi-final which gave him a boost but he achieved little until the GB 2 satellite on clay in May 2005. Success there fuelled his determination and he became leaner and started to recapture his form.
After all the injuries Martin would probably lost several of his sponsors and his finances must have been very low so that's probably why he hasn't played abroad since 2003 until this week. The costs of air fare, hotel, food etc all build up. Also, now that the LTA have increased the amount of futures, challengers and satellite in the UK, players can increase their rankings substantially by just competing in UK tournaments.
Martin has increased his ranking from outside the top 800 to close to the top 250 and I think he should get a Wimbledon wildcard this summer.
I think Martin deserves a lot of credit to come back from all his problems and fight his way back up the rankings. Something will be seriously wrong if he doesn't get a wild card at Wimbledon.
Martin's now playing challengers in Spain for three successive weeks I think, he's in the main draw for each of those so hopefully he'll get a good run in one of the events. I think he'll get into French Open qualies.
I think that he's got some more sponsorship now which is good. He's been very successful in doubles aswell in the past year, he might break the top 100 for that aswell as maybe getting back into the top 100 singles.
-- Edited by UltimateSlabbaFan at 08:50, 2006-04-24
