British men -- few coming through

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

British men -- few coming through

paulisi · Tennis legend

GAMEOVER wrote:
JonH comes home wrote:
I think for the men, I agree it is looking very bare. I do think an issue in mens tennis is very much that there are too many competing alternatives. A young man with an eye for sport, will find it is cheaper and more accessible to turn to other sports, football clearly being the leader but others such as athletics, rugby, basketball, cycling are sports where you can compete locally and also be part of a team camarederie. The money needed to make it to the top in tennis must put a lot off, if not at an early stage then as they start to compete internationally, it takes deep pockets and resolve to keep on going. Football doesnt need that; cycling neither. You play your sport and grow in a team environment as you become a young pro and effectively get paid a salary for your efforts; in tennis it is largely based on prizemoney and for many that is unsustainable if you dont make it big.

Traipsing around the world from Dominan Republic, to Tunisia, to Turkey to Italy and all over might sound exotic - but it is a) expensive b) very tiring c) lonely d) quite often not at all exotic as you stay in some poor accommodation and e) demoralising as you search for aa win against a hungry young player from Croatia or wherever.

I think more and more things like eSports come into it or, in fact, just plain old working and getting on with a career. And I think that hits the men a lot. I havent even mentioned golf where two things make a big difference - prizemoney is bigger and deeper; if you look at players earning that level of £200k plus which you need to sustain a career of travelling then golf goes much, much deeper. Secondly, you can build a career locally much easier before you hit the world tour (ie a Brit can play British events, then European PGA, then go to the States for the big money, and do that very happily financially). A US PGA Tour winner, in a sport sustained by TV, can earn $1.5m at the week in week out PGA Tour stops. A WHOLE ATP tour event at 500 level , let aone 250 , doesnt have that level of prizemoney. If you get to the USA, albeit it is for the top 125 or so in the tour, maybe from the top 250 in the world, you can sustain a career travelling largely aounnd one country, not globetrotting.

In short, we dont get the numbers of talented athletes coming into the sport, others are more attractive, and thus we push out lower quality athletes at the other end.

I dont see that changing any time soon - the sad thing is that Andy's massive success of winning 3 slams is never going to turn into the success down the line that perhaps the Borg years did for Sweden in the later 80's and 90's. Andys peak has gone and we have missed that boat.

Here are the list of the current English players in the World Top 500 golfers - 39 of them. I ask anyone to say they recognise the names of over half of these. Matthew Baldwin at #486 has a career high of 180. He is the Lloyd Glasspool of golf perhaps. Baldwin has won $1.5m dollars in his career according to his profile on European PGA site; Lloyd has won $176k; or maybe Liam Broady (I am being unfair to Liam as he is well above Baldwin rankings wise!) and he has won $750k - half what Baldwin has won)

Enough said - maybe it is one example but I think it helps make the point...

This Week Last week End 2020 Ctry Name Average Points Total Points Events Played (Divisor) Points Lost (2021) Points Gained (2021) Events Played (Actual)
9 8 10 ENG Tyrrell Hatton 5.9022 289.21 49 -77.89 78.38 49
17 17 16 ENG Matthew Fitzpatrick 4.4609 231.97 52 -70.81 65.90 56
20 20 24 ENG Paul Casey 4.0328 201.64 50 -70.98 101.28 50
23 22 36 ENG Lee Westwood 3.9302 188.65 48 -36.91 92.65 48
26 27 17 ENG Tommy Fleetwood 3.6008 187.24 52 -76.83 45.76 53
41 41 35 ENG Justin Rose 2.7864 130.96 47 -60.72 48.21 47
52 52 50 ENG Matt Wallace 2.3194 120.61 52 -46.59 48.92 62
65 64 48 ENG Ian Poulter 1.8787 97.69 52 -41.48 24.91 54
72 69 58 ENG Andy Sullivan 1.7612 82.78 47 -26.15 9.01 47
86 85 101 ENG Sam Horsfield 1.5727 69.20 44 -18.93 21.06 44
89 89 77 ENG Aaron Rai 1.5036 69.17 46 -22.39 8.87 46
92 90 67 ENG Danny Willett 1.4816 77.04 52 -39.12 15.08 55
112 110 73 ENG Tom Lewis 1.2998 67.59 52 -30.47 10.12 53
119 120 127 ENG Laurie Canter 1.2460 58.56 47 -12.02 16.13 47
159 155 134 ENG Callum Shinkwin 1.0034 40.14 40 -11.88 1.80 40
193 192 189 ENG Marcus Armitage 0.8278 39.73 48 -8.35 8.92 48
210 210 129 ENG Eddie Pepperell 0.7653 31.38 41 -20.85 2.26 41
212 203 254 ENG Chris Paisley 0.7569 35.58 47 -10.88 14.81 47
218 219 192 ENG Richard Bland 0.7241 36.93 51 -11.74 6.12 51
222 215 137 ENG Paul Waring(Feb1985) 0.7025 28.10 40 -19.06 - 39
237 280 214 ENG Andrew Johnston 0.6690 26.76 40 -11.12 5.18 25
250 242 186 ENG Jordan L Smith 0.6285 31.43 50 -15.92 1.44 50
252 251 227 ENG Matthew Southgate 0.6248 31.86 51 -13.62 5.50 51
254 243 194 ENG Matthew Jordan 0.6226 29.26 47 -13.13 - 47
261 253 242 ENG Steven Brown 0.6048 31.45 52 -10.30 3.95 54
268 262 222 ENG Robert Rock 0.5821 23.28 40 -8.67 - 35
275 265 274 ENG David Horsey 0.5622 25.30 45 -7.42 5.40 45
277 272 215 ENG Ross Fisher 0.5564 25.04 45 -11.74 - 45
291 311 255 ENG Richard Mansell 0.5306 21.22 40 -7.19 2.26 35
303 296 251 ENG Jack Senior 0.5100 26.52 52 -11.80 3.12 55
318 310 268 ENG Dale Whitnell 0.4646 19.98 43 -6.70 1.98 43
323 317 259 ENG Ross McGowan 0.4566 23.75 52 -9.70 - 55
432 426 420 ENG James Morrison 0.3206 16.03 50 -5.29 2.90 50
433 422 403 ENG Harry Hall 0.3198 12.79 40 -3.83 1.22 22
434 424 386 ENG Matt Ford 0.3180 12.72 40 -3.61 - 38
450 441 395 ENG Ben Stow 0.2879 11.52 40 -5.61 - 40
453 444 397 ENG Andrew Wilson 0.2841 11.37 40 -4.47 - 25
471 459 515 ENG Garrick Porteous 0.2638 11.87 45 -2.72 3.73 45
486 478 408 ENG Matthew Baldwin 0.2550 13.26 52 -5.38 - 52

-- Edited by JonH comes home on Friday 14th of May 2021 10:27:57 PM

-- Edited by JonH comes home on Saturday 15th of May 2021 11:04:56 AM
Jon, Matthew Baldwin is one of a number of golfers listed born in Merseyside. Tommy Fleetwood, Matthew Jordan and Paul Waring were also born on Merseyside. The list also includes 2 major winners in Justin Rose and Danny Willett. There have also been major golf winners from Northern Ireland and Eire in the last 15 years. From a tennis point of view the name Laurie Canter is of some interest. He was a tennis junior until the the age of 14 and played in a team match against Andy Murray. He then gave up tennis and took up golf instead. The development structure for a young golfer is totally different than for a young tennis player and he was glad he took up golf which he reckons he can play pro. successfully l until the age of 45. He has played in the Open.Re recognising names I saw Harry Hall playing as an amateur in the 2019 Walker Cup at Royal Liverpool.

-- Edited by GAMEOVER on Saturday 15th of May 2021 02:33:43 PM

I know all about the golf situation in Merseyside. My brother was part of a junior team at Formby, where three players turned pro - Nick Dougherty being the most famous and they played matches against local clubs where lots of his opponents turned pro.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

CD asked where all the tall lads where going to sport wise. I have no doubts it is not darts . But hes something to make you think.

The 10th ranked British darts player is Darryl Gurney. According to the pdc order of merit of official prize money , he has won 309k over the past 2 seasons. Add to that exhibitions which are quite lucrative in darts. So hes pushing 150k, maybe 200k per annum. Hes 10th ranked British player in the world rankings.

Ryan Peniston is our 10th ranked player. Hes won $67k in his career, so maybe £45k . Career. And Ryan wont get much in terms of lucrative exhibitions I would wager.

Not saying theyre playing darts but it shows there are other much more lucrative sports out there for Brits. Snooker would show a similar comparison. Brits have many , many more sporting options for careers than virtually every country as we play all sports pretty much. Which is great. But it doesnt help a sport like tennis attract the best British male athletes. Most of those are going to darts it seems (joke!!)

seagull · Hall of fame

But Darryl Gurney is 14th in the world and Peniston is 383rd so hardly a like for like comparison!

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

seagull wrote:
But Darryl Gurney is 14th in the world and Peniston is 383rd so hardly a like for like comparison!

No, but what I am trying to say is that if we look at it from a British perspective and why are/arent our players coming through in tennis, darts is an example of a sport where someone from Britain can be top 10 British, in a sport we dominate (ie that person is top 14 world wide) and earn lots of money compared to what it takes to get to the same spot in tennis ie GB #10.

Maybe clumsily, it was an example to show that there are many other sports which are cheaper to play, pay good money relative to British standards and it shows that tennis is competing in the sporting stakes for a pool of players.

Across the piece, tennis struggles to attract top sports talents in the GB , maybe more so than other countries, is my hypothesis (in the mens game) and this is one reason why we are failing to make headway globally beyond a few select players.

Darts is probably a pretty poor example to use but there you go!!

Elegant Point · Satellite level

Coup Droit wrote:
Yes, I'm looking at 6ft 4 plus (6ft 3 plus at a pinch, would even go down to 1m90)

6 ft 2 is the average height for top male tennis players so I was looking for a bit over that. Because, yes, I love watching Dan. And respect for Liam. It's great seeing the other skills that develop to make up for it.

But in terms of our talent pool, we seem unnaturally 'short'.

I know we're not quite as tall as the Dutch, say, or Denmark. But it's not far off.

And I know we might think of tall lads as being gangly and maybe not sporty, but other countries don't seem to bear that out.

(NB I don't think is THE major issue of our lack of talent, but just as an aside.....)

Maybe too dull for some, but I find data really interesting and it only took ~5mins to find a few facts......

Anthropometric data for all of the 2016 Olympic athletes, height is listed by sport. Sports with a mean height greater than tennis were rowing, handball, volley ball and unsurprisingly basketball.

https://www.topendsports.com/events/summer/science/anthropometry-2016.htm

How much does height matter in tennis?

On average, tall players can serve faster and more effectively than can shorter players. And usually, short players who succeed on tour do so by returning and moving better than their taller colleagues. The conventional wisdom is that height is an advantage, but only up to a point. An inch or two above six feet (a range between 185 and 190 cm) is good, but much more than that is too much. No player above 64 (193 cm) Marin Saffin has ever reached No. 1 in the ATP rankings.

http://www.tennisabstract.com/blog/2017/09/04/how-much-does-height-matter-in-mens-tennis/

Are taller players the future of tennis?

Sorting out exactly how much height helps a player is a complicated thing

I agree with the comment Height is clearly a competitive advantage, as taller young players rise faster through the rankings than their shorter peers. There have been numerous British juniors who did well as they were tall for their age, but are the tallest pros the highest ranked?

From 1985 to 2016, the median height of both the top 10 men and men ranked No. 11 to No. 100 was the same: 6-foot-0.8. And in those same 32 years, only three Grand Slam titles (2.4 percent) were won by players 6-foot-5 or taller (one each by Richard Krajicek, Juan Martin del Potro and Marin Cilic), while over the same period, players 6-foot-5 and above made up 7.7 percent of the top 100

Why have all the big men accomplished so little collectively? One big reason is that whatever edge the tallest men gain in serving is cancelled out by their disadvantage when returning serve

Gilbert and Tennis Channel commentator Justin Gimelstob said they believe tall players struggle on return because their higher center of gravity hurts their movement. If a very tall man can learn to move like the merely tall players that have long dominated the sportDjokovic, Murray (6-foot-3), Roger Federer (6-foot-1) and Rafael Nadal (6-foot-1)

http://www.tennisabstract.com/blog/2017/02/16/are-taller-players-the-future-of-tennis/

Does the fastest serve depend on height ? Physicist Rhett Alain derived a model to investigate this and calculated a player would nned to be 71 to beat Ive Karlovics record of 156mph.

https://www.wired.com/2011/03/does-the-fastest-tennis-serve-depend-on-height/

So maybe we dont need to worry to much about the lack of tall Brits taking up tennis, until the tallest guys can develop the skills to consistently return at the level of a Djokovic or a Murray??

All my quote marks will probably disappear hmm

Aberdaberdonian · Club Coach

So I thought a couple of graphs might be of interest. They are based on the top 100 ranking under 21s in this week ATP rankings. The top graph is how many of the top 100 U21 players each nation can claim. The bottom graph is a breakdown of the individual rankings of the 100 (all have a ATP ranking within the top 900).

So its never wise to draw too much (or any) conclusions from 1 set of data biggrin . It would make far more sense to gather a few more weeks worth of data first, but having said that.......

- As mentioned earlier, whatever Italy are doing, it seems to be working a treat smile

- Based on Strongbow's strongest nation stats, you could argue that the UK is doing better than expected in terms of up and comers. We are listed as the 11th strongest nation, but rank 7th in terms of placing u21s in the rankings. Sure its only 4 players, but its more than alot of nations.

- If we are worried about our prospects, spare a thought for our german equivalents, who currently have to pin all their hopes on 1 player

- Canada must be counting their lucky stars to have Felix

- For all of their dominance, it would seem neither Roger nor Novak have had much luck inspiring a new generation of players for Switzerland or Serbia. Although factor in populations and the tables would be turned and its the UK that wouldn't look so hot.....an example of the good old "lies, damn lies and statistics" biggrin .

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Thanks aberdaberdonian, I like that analysis amd it puts an interesting spin on it. Will read properly later and comment !

amaesing · Improver

Firstly, the lack of domestic tournaments is a, if not THE key factor. This has a number of obvious impacts. (lets take Covid out of the equation for the time being)

1) It allows British players to compete without the same amount of financial worries.

2) Back to back tournaments throughout long periods have clearly benefitted the Italians + other countries.

3) I'd like someone to give me good reasons why we cannot run 40 ITF's a year in this country spread throughout England Scotland Wales. That is probably a thread in itself.

4) Several domestic tournaments will clearly generate interest throughout the game and hopefully if managed well would put money into the game.

5) I hate the wild card system. But whilst it exists domestic tournaments can use it to bring players on. You only need to look at Tunisia. There 4 top players regularly competing in Monastir have had over a 100 WC's between them and form the basis of their DC team. They probably punch above their weight but it is far easier to progress going straight into the MD.

6) I don't buy the nonsense about Domestic tournaments softening players up. They need to do both obviously and a strong domestic set of tournaments forms an obvious base.

7) Easier for a UK Coach to be with their player.

8) Opportunity for more doubles.

That just scrapes the surface on this first point.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

amaesing wrote:
Firstly, the lack of domestic tournaments is a, if not THE key factor. This has a number of obvious impacts. (lets take Covid out of the equation for the time being)
1) It allows British players to compete without the same amount of financial worries.
2) Back to back tournaments throughout long periods have clearly benefitted the Italians + other countries.
3) I'd like someone to give me good reasons why we cannot run 40 ITF's a year in this country spread throughout England Scotland Wales. That is probably a thread in itself.
4) Several domestic tournaments will clearly generate interest throughout the game and hopefully if managed well would put money into the game.
5) I hate the wild card system. But whilst it exists domestic tournaments can use it to bring players on. You only need to look at Tunisia. There 4 top players regularly competing in Monastir have had over a 100 WC's between them and form the basis of their DC team. They probably punch above their weight but it is far easier to progress going straight into the MD.
6) I don't buy the nonsense about Domestic tournaments softening players up. They need to do both obviously and a strong domestic set of tournaments forms an obvious base.
7) Easier for a UK Coach to be with their player.
8) Opportunity for more doubles.
That just scrapes the surface on this first point.

Agreed

thegingerlightbulb · Lower Club Player

I think 20 years ago we went through a collectivr backlash against WC's. The public and the LTA were fed up with the likes of Jo Pullin and Alex Bogdanovic turning up at British tournamements every year and losing. But the subsequent playoff system, and the harsh rules in place to get a WC have only resulted in a reduced pool of players. You only have to look at the success the likes of Evans and Liam Broady have had recently to see that often playrrs dont peek until their late 20s, but most of our young players have given up the game by the time they are 23

Aberdaberdonian · Club Coach

So hopefully this is still on topic smile , but here's some graphs based on crunching the top 1000 ranking players. Top row is just a breakdown of all the players. The bottom row, how GB compare to the rest of the world. Perhaps rather surprisingly we are best represented in the 16-19 age group, (3.4% of the total) albeit that the difference are v small (and it is just one (random) week's data). Where we are badly under-represented is in the 35 and over groups. But fingers crossed, James Ward and Andy will fix that early next year biggrin

The bottom right graph, uses median rather than average so will minimise any outliers which could skew the numbers.

2021 T1000.JPG

Aberdaberdonian · Club Coach

For completeness, here's the numbers for that bottom right graph, both the median and the average. Av vs MD.JPG