Boys & Girls: J30 Loughborough, Great Britain - hard (week 40)

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Boys & Girls: J30 Loughborough, Great Britain - hard (week 40)

Oscariyan · Strong Club Player

Good set of results and well done to all the winners! Was very impressed with what I saw from Megan on my trip to wimbledon in the summer so nice to see her make the step up in level and winning as a WC :)

-- Edited by Oscariyan on Friday 4th of October 2024 03:32:38 PM

Mervatron2 · Challenger qualifying

Quite the ITF debut from Megan. Was very impressed with her play at the juniors in the summer.

Quiet exciting to see another great prospect come through.

dodrade · Futures qualifying

Mervatron2 wrote:
Quite the ITF debut from Megan. Was very impressed with her play at the juniors in the summer.

Quiet exciting to see another great prospect come through.

Is it too early to get excited yet? How does she compare to Hannah/Mika/Mimi in terms of potential?

Strongbow · All-time great

I suspect that it is me being stupid but why has Megan played tennis-Europe events and not junior ITF events before. Same seems to be true for Eric Lorimer. Is it prestige v points ?

Oscariyan · Strong Club Player

Strongbow wrote:
I suspect that it is me being stupid but why has Megan played tennis-Europe events and not junior ITF events before. Same seems to be true for Eric Lorimer. Is it prestige v points ?

That's a good question because I've thought of that too. Megan judging by how she has won her first ITF title with ease and perhaps could have already been playing at this level earlier? Also Mark Ceban opted for a TE event when he could have entered an ITF. But there must be strategic planning and purpose that I don't know.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Just to be clear, not that it changes much, this is not her absolute ITF début

Megan did play the J100 in Loughborough back in March - and lost in the first round

Also, she's only been eligible to play ITF since February (when she turned 13), so only for the last 8 months, and there's a strict number limitation (that lasts till Feb 2025)

Why the choice of TE over ITF in large since then, I don't really know - she obviously wants to qualify for Les Petits As in Jan (which is a Tennis Europe event). And there are other presitgious TE events. And it's good, in terms of development, to play against the best of your age group, and TE has included the 2010s this year, so there's been good competition for her; for development, you wouldn't want to be playing a lot of not-very-good 17 year-olds, say, even if you win, it's not the same challenge.

But I don't think it matters at all - more of a question is how much Tennis Europe she'll do next year - presumably far far less. And will make big, big strides in ITF

Definitely a player to be mentioned in the same breath as Hannah and Mika

Lambda · Challenger level

As long as she's learning and developing with each match she plays what does it matter what the label on the tin is?

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

Lambda wrote:
As long as she's learning and developing with each match she plays what does it matter what the label on the tin is?

Exactly, that's what I was saying about it not really mattering, with TE being maybe a better learning and developing path for this year, but probably a lot less next year

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

I think its easy for us, the fans, to get caught up in rankings and points and assume they matter and the players care. There are many top players, Jake being one recently, that had no junior ranking of note and are doing well on tour.

So we probably shouldnt care what their ranking is so long as they grow and develop.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

JonH comes home wrote:
I think its easy for us, the fans, to get caught up in rankings and points and assume they matter and the players care. There are many top players, Jake being one recently, that had no junior ranking of note and are doing well on tour.

So we probably shouldnt care what their ranking is so long as they grow and develop.

But Jon, didn't Jake get to be top-30 in juniors?

that's hardly 'no junior ranking of note' !!!!

Sabalenka might be a better example

But the fact that there are some top players who weren't very successful juniors is hardly a mega argument when there are so many more who were

ADD: just gone to check - Jakes got up to JWR 27 !

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Saturday 5th of October 2024 07:34:33 AM

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Coup Droit wrote:
JonH comes home wrote:
I think its easy for us, the fans, to get caught up in rankings and points and assume they matter and the players care. There are many top players, Jake being one recently, that had no junior ranking of note and are doing well on tour.

So we probably shouldnt care what their ranking is so long as they grow and develop.
But Jon, didn't Jake get to be top-30 in juniors?
that's hardly 'no junior ranking of note' !!!!
Sabalenka might be a better example
But the fact that there are some top players who weren't very successful juniors is hardly a mega argument when there are so many more who were
ADD: just gone to check - Jakes got up to JWR 27 !

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Saturday 5th of October 2024 07:34:33 AM

I guess Im just wondering do junior rankings really matter in terms of players chasing points (re Jake, sorry I thought his high was circle 127! My bad) versus choosing a path to just develop their game.

indiana · Tennis legend

At Megan's age ( probably generally for me below age 16 but most definitely at 13/14 ), yes the most important thing is that her tennis continues to develop, much much more than ranking points. And indeed how 13 to 15 yos are seen to compare rankingswise or just in general at these ages matters relatively less to me than wondering how their later junior years will go and how they will transition to seniors.

All things being equal though I would want to see relatively big winning / ranking progress by around 15/16 for the girls ( a year or two later for the boys ). It's not about chasing points, it's about getting big junior wins ( and the rankings that come wirh that ) so showing that they are ahead of the curve and essentially looking more likely to 'make it'.

pauliscot · Social player

Be amazing if Knight, Britton and Ouvarova could be the next Hannah/Mimi/Mika?

Var · Pro player

indiana wrote:
At Megan's age ( probably generally for me below age 16 but most definitely at 13/14 ), yes the most important thing is that her tennis continues to develop, much much more than ranking points. And indeed how 13 to 15 yos are seen to compare rankingswise or just in general at these ages matters relatively less to me than wondering how their later junior years will go and how they will transition to seniors.
All things being equal though I would want to see relatively big winning / ranking progress by around 15/16 for the girls ( a year or two later for the boys ). It's not about chasing points, it's about getting big junior wins ( and the rankings that come wirh that ) so showing that they are ahead of the curve and essentially looking more likely to 'make it'.

This an interesting thread on the topic. https://www.tennisforum.com/threads/junior-players-with-average-records-that-made-it-big-as-pros.1387605/