British Player of the Season 2020 - Semi Final Round, Group 2

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

British Player of the Season 2020 - Semi Final Round, Group 2

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Gone for Alfie - putting aside comparing genre's, his season was outstanding and truly world leading so he takes my vote on lots of consideration and reflection. I may well have even changed my vote from a previous round!

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Thats right, I voted Fran over Alfie previously, and Joe over Fran this time. Suspect that makes it clear where my vote in a final would go but reserve right to change my mind!!

TTMan · Intermediate Club Player

I agree it FEELS like Dan had a very good year and Jo a poor 2020 but everything is relative. It's almost impossible to sensibly compare the two tours where WTA have far fewer tournaments. However, by my calculation Dan made 950 points (inc ATP Cup) and 750 on tour, that's 68 and 58 points per tournament respectively. Jo made 658 points from 9 tournaments, that's 73 points per tournament (please check my figures). Simon Briggs in The Telegraph made the following comment: "Even if she had an underwhelming 2020 at the slams - winning only one match where last year's tally was 14 - Konta remains the only British singles player who arrives at these tournaments with a chance of winning them."

My vote goes to Jo.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

TTMan wrote:
I agree it FEELS like Dan had a very good year and Jo a poor 2020 but everything is relative. It's almost impossible to sensibly compare the two tours where WTA have far fewer tournaments. However, by my calculation Dan made 950 points (inc ATP Cup) and 750 on tour, that's 68 and 58 points per tournament respectively. Jo made 658 points from 9 tournaments, that's 73 points per tournament (please check my figures). Simon Briggs in The Telegraph made the following comment: "Even if she had an underwhelming 2020 at the slams - winning only one match where last year's tally was 14 - Konta remains the only British singles player who arrives at these tournaments with a chance of winning them."

My vote goes to Jo.

I suspect Alfies average points are signficantly better and it is pretty clear to me he is the overwhelmingly top player this year in THIS group

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

JonH comes home wrote:
TTMan wrote:
I agree it FEELS like Dan had a very good year and Jo a poor 2020 but everything is relative. It's almost impossible to sensibly compare the two tours where WTA have far fewer tournaments. However, by my calculation Dan made 950 points (inc ATP Cup) and 750 on tour, that's 68 and 58 points per tournament respectively. Jo made 658 points from 9 tournaments, that's 73 points per tournament (please check my figures). Simon Briggs in The Telegraph made the following comment: "Even if she had an underwhelming 2020 at the slams - winning only one match where last year's tally was 14 - Konta remains the only British singles player who arrives at these tournaments with a chance of winning them."

My vote goes to Jo.
I suspect Alfies average points are signficantly better and it is pretty clear to me he is the overwhelmingly top player this year in THIS group

playing devils advocate of course!

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Looking like this group is going to be a pretty close run one!

ROSAMUND · Futures level

I voted for Jo as hard to vote against one's favourite

TTMan · Intermediate Club Player

JonH comes home wrote:
JonH comes home wrote:
TTMan wrote:
I agree it FEELS like Dan had a very good year and Jo a poor 2020 but everything is relative. It's almost impossible to sensibly compare the two tours where WTA have far fewer tournaments. However, by my calculation Dan made 950 points (inc ATP Cup) and 750 on tour, that's 68 and 58 points per tournament respectively. Jo made 658 points from 9 tournaments, that's 73 points per tournament (please check my figures). Simon Briggs in The Telegraph made the following comment: "Even if she had an underwhelming 2020 at the slams - winning only one match where last year's tally was 14 - Konta remains the only British singles player who arrives at these tournaments with a chance of winning them."

My vote goes to Jo.
I suspect Alfies average points are signficantly better and it is pretty clear to me he is the overwhelmingly top player this year in THIS group
playing devils advocate of course!

Comparing different tours is the same issue SPOTY has with comparing sports, genders, etc. Greatly appreciate the work you've put in organising this, it's been fun and I enjoy the fight but for the future (if you can stand doing it again) would it be feasible to have separate polls for the different tours or pick the best from each tour for the next round?

I'm guilty of not following wheelchair as much as I should (TV coverage is in part to blame) but will definitely make it an action point for the new year.

As for Jo, I feel obliged to fight her corner as she's a double victim of both gender and unwarranted bad press and I genuinely believe she's the best we have at the top level right now and second only to Murray in recent times. Gender bias was very obvious in the previous rounds for ALL the women.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Happy to debate format for the future - always open to discussion!

Re the last point though?! Really?

Round One - we had 18 men and 14 women. The entrants came from all the Player of Month polls we have run plus top of various ranking lists, and tournament winners (ie players who won the most events over the year). Strip out the tournie winners qualifiers for a second and we would have had 14 of men and 14 of women - all the tournie winners qualifiers where men from juniors or wheelchairs. So no bias coming in I would say...

But anyway, the polls started with 18 and 14. We should therefore have expected maybe one or so more men but a similar ratio in each subsequent round

QF round - 17 players left in - we had 8 men and 9 women. So it flipped slightly. mmm.

SF round - 10 players left in - we have 5 men and 5 women

There may well have been some gender bias but that to me is well hidden. We started with 43.75% women, that went up to 56.25% and is now at 50% at semifinal stage.

maybe I am blind but I am not seeing the bias??!

emmsie69 · Top national player

Votesd Dan, exceeded expectations and won matches he was 2nd favourite in, had some rubbish draws overall whereas frequently jo came off 2nd best in matches you'd expect her to win.

-- Edited by emmsie69 on Thursday 17th of December 2020 03:05:28 PM

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

As an aside, I deliberately voted away from Evo here - he is my favourite player but I was worried it would have been a vote based on that and so I favoured Alfie. I think I am right in doing that, but it was a tough one!!

TTMan · Intermediate Club Player

What I meant is a voting bias:

Group W Joe 62%, Group X Dan 64%, Group Y Liam 58% only Group Z had a majority of votes for a female. I think Heather was the only female to get more than 20% of the votes in any of groups W,X and Y. Unsurprisingly, this would most likely be driven by the relative numbers of voting forum members favouring each tour but I appreciate the work you've done to equalise each group from one round to the next. My comment refers to the voting patterns, definitely not your organisation. Hope that puts it straight?

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

TTMan wrote:
What I meant is a voting bias:

Group W Joe 62%, Group X Dan 64%, Group Y Liam 58% only Group Z had a majority of votes for a female. I think Heather was the only female to get more than 20% of the votes in any of groups W,X and Y. Unsurprisingly, this would most likely be driven by the relative numbers of voting forum members favouring each tour but I appreciate the work you've done to equalise each group from one round to the next. My comment refers to the voting patterns, definitely not your organisation. Hope that puts it straight?

Hi TTMan - dont worry, I wasnt taking it re the organisational aspects of it but felt that as women were getting through each round in slightly better state than when they started, that was a reflection there wasnt any real voting bias?

emmsie69 · Top national player

I had the same problem with Harriet in the last group but ultimately I think Dans achievements have been lost in the points not coming off other players not sure about jos relative ranking but syspect this year has had the opposite where her poor form has been disguised by keeping her points.