Brendan F wrote:

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JonH comes home wrote:

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mdewey wrote:

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It has to be Henry P for a grand slam win. Honourable mention to Alfie H but he has won so many times that his triumphs do not quite beat Henry's.

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 I think the fact he has won many titles does end up counting against Alfie in these votes and it is hard to see how he gets out of that cycle! He won Wimbledon singles, and the Paralympics Doubles, last year and both times he had strong main tour players who gathered more votes and got little support.

I think most people on here do admire him and what he does, but it doesnt quite get their vote when others - in the able bodied game - do something of note that month. 

Alfie is probably one of those players whose body of work over a year amounts to a bigger thing than their single month achievement, relative to others, and he tends to therefore end up doing better in Player of the Season as opposed to Player of the Month.   

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 The problem with wheelchair tennis is it gets so little coverage that we can't judge how big the achievements made in it are. What sort of competition is there? Is it just a few exceptional players who just fight amongst themselves? I guess it didn't hinder Andy so much when he was one of the elite, but obviously he never had the problem of us knowing what his achievements meant in the grand scheme of things. 

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 its a fair point, Brendan, and that is probably part of it. There are world rankings that run quite deep and an all year round ITF tour structured with layers of events not unlike the ATP Tour. After the 4 slams, there are super series, series 1 and down to series 3 events. There are 5 or 6 super series events and they typically have prizemoney of circa $45k to $60k. So small challenger? The fields in those are usually 32 singles draw events although entries often below that in the mid 20s. 

Slams have 16 player singles and 8 pair doubles fields. prize money is much bigger for those. I think Alfie got over £50k for winning Wimbledon. 

Those top 16 are probably the strong players on the tour. Most events go largely with seedings, not entirely but largely. The winners of the slams and super series events come almost exclusively from the top 4 players, maybe 6, and (for men) Alfie and Tokito Oda dominate and win most. 

if you watch a match between Alfie and someone in the top 10, it will be long and attritional, but Alfie would win 90% of the time. Id liken it more a sport like squash where it largely goes with rankings, but there are some big old battles. 

 

 

Re Alfie not getting many votes in PoM but doing well in PoS, I wonder if it's also partly that, when Alfie's won a slam, people know he's automatically already qualified for PoS so decide to give their vote to someone who hasn't qualified yet.

And I'll admit the "but how good of an achievement is that really, given the depth in wheelchair tennis?" did cross my mind in the past. Thanks to Jon's championing of wheelchair tennis, I now know the answer is very good, because there may not be a lot of depth but the top dozen players really are very good and tough to beat.

Just over 24 hours left in this vote, as we go into the first of two evenings. It may be closer to 10 pm that I get to set the timer and therefore when the vote ends tomorrow - I will broadcast it once known!

Well, Im beginning to wonder if the new section on the forum hasnt helped in terms of visibility as there arent many views and there arent many votes!

Nonetheless, we will persevere- but if you havent voted, please do have a think and give it a go!

Thank you so much!

Ill leave it there and just so where we go as I promised myself I wouldnt stress or get worried about it this season, haha.

Blue_Belle wrote:

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A real toss up between Jodie, Henry and Jake. Will need to think.

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 Voted for Henry

22 votes now - remember, the vote will close at 8.15 pm tonight. First PoM of the season, be great to get a few more votes in during today.

JonH comes home wrote:

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Tanaqui wrote:

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Re Alfie not getting many votes in PoM but doing well in PoS, I wonder if it's also partly that, when Alfie's won a slam, people know he's automatically already qualified for PoS so decide to give their vote to someone who hasn't qualified yet.

And I'll admit the "but how good of an achievement is that really, given the depth in wheelchair tennis?" did cross my mind in the past. Thanks to Jon's championing of wheelchair tennis, I now know the answer is very good, because there may not be a lot of depth but the top dozen players really are very good and tough to beat.

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 maybe, although do people think that much about it!! I just think in the month, when I vote, and I sort of imagined most people did as well? Are people thinking about PoS at the start of Feb?!

I suspect per your second point, it is more that most people just dont follow it really, a bit like the College play that Lambda supports - do we really pay much attention to how big a deal a players performance is at the NCAA's or whatever? Probably not enough to make it turn our heads and suspect Wheelchair tennis falls into that situation a little

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 I do if I'm struggling to choose between a couple of players. If one is already in PoS I'll vote for the other one.

I also tend to vote for the GS titles initially but if my expectation is that the Player will make the Final and probably win then I don't. So I've voted for Henry this time but if he wins another 1 this year I probably won't unless there really hasn't been a standout performance from anyone else.