Weeks 39 & 40 - French Open, Roland-Garros, Paris (clay)

ROSAMUND · Futures level

RE: Weeks 39 & 40 - French Open, Roland-Garros, Paris (clay)

ROSAMUND · Futures level

Team sports have become more popular for girls in this country. Some of it is due to exposure and sucess at the Olympics.Far more girls are playing football, rugby,cricket, netball and hockey. Probably more sociable sports and ,less expensive than tennis.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

ROSAMUND wrote:
Serena has pulled out Just announced by Sam Smith

Ooh, thats interesting! What is the reason given?

ROSAMUND · Futures level

JonH comes home wrote:
ROSAMUND wrote:
Serena has pulled out Just announced by Sam Smith
Ooh, thats interesting! What is the reason given?

All will be revealed soon. Maybe achilles Heard her interview .Sounded like she couldn't walk probably and achilles,

-- Edited by ROSAMUND on Wednesday 30th of September 2020 10:56:21 AM

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

ROSAMUND wrote:
Team sports have become more popular for girls in this country. Some of it is due to exposure and sucess at the Olympics.Far more girls are playing football, rugby,cricket, netball and hockey. Probably more sociable sports and ,less expensive than tennis.

Agreed, and I think to a young person that means a lot more than the lure of future earnings. You start a sport by wanting to have fun and enjoy it and then see where that takes you, usually with no expectation it will take you anywhere. Once on the tennis bandwagon, you have to have the desire to continue as you progress and I suspect many simply dont, and who can blame them

indiana · Tennis legend

JonH comes home wrote:
emmsie69 wrote:
indiana wrote:
PaulM wrote:
For those without access to the Telegraph, the Mail also cover her comments:

www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/tennis/article-8786711/Heather-Watson-slams-LTA-rapid-Brexit-French-Open.html

Well said Heather re the focus on a select group of players from a young age and how later developing hard working non chosen ones can miss out. Though it is something that many have said on this forum and elsewhere for a long time and little changes - and money is thrown at little Jonny and Elsie who have been playing since 4 yo.
Beyond say Jack Draper and Emma Radacanu, and they are still developing, as even more so is Matilda Mutavdzic, there seem very few potential top 100 players on the horizon. We must hope additionally that such as the bit older Jay Clarke, Katie Boulter and Fran Jones can stay fit and push on but it is such a small pool. The men's side younger than Kyle and Cam ( both now 25 yo ) looks especially dire. The women's side more stands up with a pool of decent still relatively young players but as to Slam level we continue to not have more than 2 or 3 top 100 women at a time.
You have a short memory, Arthur Fery and to a lesser extent Anton matusevich both under 20. I also think there are a lot more juniors going off the the US and in some cases to top Universities where they use their tennis as a platform to other things which doesn't help our tennis stats but on a personal level is a great move IMO.
Not sure people should write off Paul Jubb just yet although hes a year or three older.

Ha, I guessed folk would throw up more names plus there are always some late developers - eg. Jo Konta. I write off nobody but I think my and orhers' general points stand. It"s not great.

Re specific mentions, I nearly did add in Paul and yes err temporarily forgot about Arthur.

indiana · Tennis legend

JonH comes home wrote:
ROSAMUND wrote:
Team sports have become more popular for girls in this country. Some of it is due to exposure and sucess at the Olympics.Far more girls are playing football, rugby,cricket, netball and hockey. Probably more sociable sports and ,less expensive than tennis.
Agreed, and I think to a young person that means a lot more than the lure of future earnings. You start a sport by wanting to have fun and enjoy it and then see where that takes you, usually with no expectation it will take you anywhere. Once on the tennis bandwagon, you have to have the desire to continue as you progress and I suspect many simply dont, and who can blame them

Also that financial disparity ( and clearly, as AV says, it is vastly more pronounced ar top levels for women ) is much the same in other nations so if an incentive ( and I take Jon's points re what first attracts most people to particular sports ), perhaps more of an incentive in say eastern Europe with sometimes less other opportunities. So net net, I'd say that the money ( and fame ) available at the top level is not a reason why we should expect relatively more from our women than our men.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

JonH comes home wrote:
ROSAMUND wrote:
Team sports have become more popular for girls in this country. Some of it is due to exposure and sucess at the Olympics.Far more girls are playing football, rugby,cricket, netball and hockey. Probably more sociable sports and ,less expensive than tennis.
Agreed, and I think to a young person that means a lot more than the lure of future earnings. You start a sport by wanting to have fun and enjoy it and then see where that takes you, usually with no expectation it will take you anywhere. Once on the tennis bandwagon, you have to have the desire to continue as you progress and I suspect many simply dont, and who can blame them

Yes, but none of this explains the disparity with other european countries, say.

It's the same for everyone.

emmsie69 · Top national player

A few years ago I was slightly involved in Surrey Hockey. The way they choose the junior county teams is actually much more equitable than tennis. We ran a few week long trainingcourses for players nominated by their school or club at a pretty low cost, all the players were assesed during the week on a variety of things including movement, athleticim etc so not just core stick skills and then the highest scorers were selected for the County team and then got further training. The next year rinse and repeat but no one was guaranteed a spot, they still had to go to the sessions and perform It also wasn't free although it was heavily subsidised.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Having beaten JoKo, Coco Gauff lost today in three sets to Trevisan.

Huge, unbridled delight from Martina

Which she deserved, especially as the umpire made an awful call against her, right at the end of the third set

Ace Ventura · Tennis legend

Yeah, it was really poor. I was still wanting Gauff to win, but it would have been harsh on Trevisan - huge difference thinking you're on MP, and then wrongly facing a BP in the blink of an eye.

NINETEEN DFs from Gauff.

ROSAMUND · Futures level

Ace Ventura wrote:
Yeah, it was really poor. I was still wanting Gauff to win, but it would have been harsh on Trevisan - huge difference thinking you're on MP, and then wrongly facing a BP in the blink of an eye.

NINETEEN DFs from Gauff.

Gauff is remodelling her serve but it's become a double fault machine in her latest matches. 19 in this match, 12 against Jo, 15 against Muguruza and 13 against Sevastova in New York. The other player on a par with this last year was Ostapenko but may have reduced them a bit this year.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

It's hard to know as I havent seen Gauff serve but so many players with double fault issues either toss the ball too high and thus lack consistency in their motion or dont use spin on their second serve , top spin, and have less margin for error. It becomes mental and bam.

Not sure if that is Gauffs issue?

ROSAMUND · Futures level

I see Thomas Hogstedt is now coaching Jelena Ostapenko. She's another player who's had a few coaches in her time.

brittak · Satellite level

ROSAMUND wrote:
I see Thomas Hogstedt is now coaching Jelena Ostapenko. She's another player who's had a few coaches in her time.

And she has just knocked second seed Karolina Pliskova out!