I noticed Sean Hodkin has been docked 10 points in the overall league (he has scored 20. Theyve plopped an asterix against his name, down to 10). Presumably that is for a late withdrawal this week?
I see Katherine Barnes is competing this week, I wonder if she's coaching at Gosling. Last time I saw her she had a pretty eventful 2021, beating Raducanu before Wimbledon and losing to Klugman
Is it just me but is this League gradually declining? The interest on this board has clearly depleted as rankings tennis ramped up; the standard of entry is a lot lower; and the narrative harder to pin down as the entry lists seem to not have the same players each week.
Not sure what its future holds but it seems like the British Tour now, just passing interest. Which is a little sad but maybe inevitable - world rankings are the main currency in tennis and this doesnt provide that, and without a narrative or quality field it is hard to get excited about it...
I admit that I have lost interest as so few ranked players are taking part this year - and as you say the entry lists are very different each week with lt not being easy to find out just who the players are.
It is the same with the British Tour, where most of the tournaments seem to be Grade 2 and even the Premier events are lacking in ranked players.
I've actually been following the UK Pro Leage quite a lot as it's had some of my favourite players in (at all ends of the scale). Geroge Loff, Brandon, William Mc....
And the women too....
It's the UTR event that I've had more trouble with. I like their livestreaming and I watch a bit of that. But the score and result system is so difficult to follow on the site(maybe just me?) that I struggle
The British Tour events for girls has become precisely that - for girls. It seems to be almost completely juniors in a lot of the events (which I find interesting but others probably don't). Hence, why two mid-20s players as top 2 seeds caught my attention today.
I've actually been following the UK Pro Leage quite a lot as it's had some of my favourite players in (at all ends of the scale). Geroge Loff, Brandon, William Mc....
And the women too....
It's the UTR event that I've had more trouble with. I like their livestreaming and I watch a bit of that. But the score and result system is so difficult to follow on the site(maybe just me?) that I struggle
The British Tour events for girls has become precisely that - for girls. It seems to be almost completely juniors in a lot of the events (which I find interesting but others probably don't). Hence, why two mid-20s players as top 2 seeds caught my attention today.
my interest tends to be from Cam and the ATP Tour players through our Challenger players and top ITF players - top 500 really, maybe 600 but I dont get excited below that - the UKPL used to have players in that range in the first year, a lot, a little last year, but not much at all now, the odd player. Womens wise, I guess similar but my interest is much less generally and the large number of UK based non Brits in the field for the womens detracts from my interest ( I hope that isnt xenophobic but a WR non Brit around 500-1000 wouldnt interest me generally and wouldnt interest me in a British event either).
British Tour similarly tends to catch my eye only when someone big plays, or just to see what the league standings look like
Kate Mansfield's form seems to have picked up the past few months with British Tour wins and now a UKPL final. She seems a more likely prospect to switch than Joanna Garland given she lives and plays most of her Tennis in the UK.
Kate Mansfield's form seems to have picked up the past few months with British Tour wins and now a UKPL final. She seems a more likely prospect to switch than Joanna Garland given she lives and plays most of her Tennis in the UK.
Perhaps. But the family have always struck me as quite American.
And on a more career minded basis, there is far less reason for a US player to change to be British than a Chinese Taipei player. Kate has access to all the US federation schemes etc - there are tons of wildcards to tons of top tennis events, for instance. There#s not a hige benefit to being British apart from being a bigger fish in a smaller sea. Whereas Taipei doesn't offer much at all at federation level.
This has nothing at all to do with where her personal affiliation lies, of course.
And I like Kate Mansfield - I saw her play a month ago and was really impressed - there's a lot to like and most definitely going in the right direction