indiana wrote:

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TW18 wrote:

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twentytoone wrote:

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Everyone talks about bens height holding him back but i think thats what makes him better

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 Agree.  I love watching him play.  When he was younger he'd spring off the floor to meet the ball, sometimes many feet off the ground.  Fascinating.  Really like his play.

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 Yes. But ultimately, without a real growth spurt, it will surely be disadvantageous.

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 Dont get me wrong , his play and ball striking was really good. I was just thinking like Indy to when he heads to the adult game. 

Lta competition support YouTube channel for qualifier streams

It's a shame there's no steam for qualis but the three matches I'm most curious about today are:

Alex Okonwko v Ilias
Dilhan W v Oli Hague
Henry J v Seb Harrison

The Okonkwo family have three sons (that I know of). All three are tall, well-built, pretty amazing 'athletic specimen' guys. Also, really nice kids, and nice parents too.

Oliver Okonwko is a very good tennis player, at college in the US. Age 22 now - am hoping to see him give the pro tour a try at some time.
I saw him play in juniors a couple of time
There's an excellent 20 sec interview and tennis clip here:

youtu.be/G7OybBqBpqM

The middle son, James, is 6 ft 8, and basically grew too tall for tennis - had an excellent serve but then tripped over his feet He's doing basketball in the US college system and doing really well

Alex is the youngest (that I know of). Again, compared to your average 17 year-old, he's twice the size and twice the power. It's never easy as a youngster to learn know how to use that power to your advantage - to find the right balance. But Alex has been playing British Tour and UTR events recently and so the match practice should have done him good. Ilias is a very decent player so I'd have like to see that match

twentytoone wrote:

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James is playing division 1 basketball in America but I forget who for.
Oli was a good junior winning quite a few grade 2s and getting to the finals of some grade 1s.
Alex is also very good but doesnt seem to play very much juniors and from watching his match yesterday loves to slice a lot escpecially on the forehand instead of hitting it which I absolutely love

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Do you mean you love him slicing it? Or you love him hitting it? 

I saw Alex recently - and was half tearing my hair out - I could almost hear my old team French regional coaches screaming 'HIT THE BALL' (well, in French, of course, but all the same....) 

A guy of his size should be taking the fluff off the ball (not every time, of course, but even if you miss some - you intimidate the opponent, they stand back, you get many corrolary benefits).

twentytoone wrote:

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I love him slicing it. But I can understand people being frustrated by it. I think its all
Part of his game. Shame its not being broadcast

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We can't agree on that, I'm afraid 

Lots of guys can slice it. And - yes - a bit of variation is good

But if you're a junior who's 6ft 3 and 90 kilos (or whatever), wouldn't you want him just to smash the ball?  

I do agree its about mindset though - some players go with the approach 'you're as strong as your strongest shot' - hence, smash it; some prefer the 'you're as weak as your weakest shot', hence keep it in play.

I was always amused that the basic instinct (one way or the other) is obvious in 7 year-olds, say, and it feeds all the way through their tennis careers - I even remember one pair of identical twins who were in a regional elite group in France - one was the first group, one was the second group - it was quite amusing to watch 

And, yes, shame there's no stream  

twentytoone wrote:

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Junior tennis is all hit and miss though. Someone may be a good player but not amazing at 18-19 and end up as a top 50 player. Its all relative to current ability and chance of progressing which is why to me its so enjoyable to watch them develop. Theres no way 18 months ago you would have put oli bonding as our number 1 junior and being 40th in itf with 2 years to go. But he devolved and its pretty cool to see

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 Absolutely 

Junior results are interesting and, overall, give a good inidcator but they're hardly the be all and end all, either way. Arthur Féry was pretty much unranked in ITFs when I first saw him, and it was A1 clear and obvious that it was completely wrong - I then learned about his background and understood why he wasn't doing it the way of the others. Kids follow different paths. On the other hand, I once got into a 'polite spat' with one parent whose child was natonal champion in a younger age group - and I didn't rate said child (who now is in their 20s and doing nothing in tennis, despite trying). And then there are the ones I get completely wrong - which I also love to follow