lol, is ther a egg on face simley ,

i can understand where draper is coming from on this one, but with the real limited lvl of top events in this country its much harder for our players to push for the upper lvls reguarly. compare with france, 1 GS, several atp's on a range of surafces inc a masters and a large range of challengers and some high lvl ones. Uk is way behind there and that really needs to be improved, so ok maybe giving thwe wc's out doesnt encourage a winning attitude, but whats tghe point of giving out wc's to forigners who are 'losers'?

look at the uk, whe have one of the best challengers in the yearly calender ywet keep it at the bottom level, how does that encourage winners?

as someone else pointed out on another board, losing at wimby can sometimes teach you a lot about winning, after alex lost to federer he then went and reached the finals of the next 2 challenegrs.  

to get more people interested in tennis it needs to be seen as a year long event and having everthing based over 4 weeks, bar Dc ties which get awful bbc coverage, does not do that. Simple, get an atp event at another time of the year, or which is probably easier get some top end challengers whioch get top 75 players and give them proper media covergae.  

ecit: poor bigs arvs tho, bit harsh on him.

This year I think that all the players who have been given wildcards are 'winners' Delgado earned his in the play off as did Mackin and Lee (both of whom did excellently at Queens, Mackin pushing a top 30 player very close in the qualifying and Lee qualifying). Boggo, Baker and Bloomfield all deserve their wildcards as well in reward for their results this year. Whilst I see where Draper is coming from and agree that wildcards should not be given to people who have no chance of winning a match however I don't think that it the case for any of these guys.

Moreover, as Count Zero said sometimes losing in a grand slam is almost as good as winning as it allows the players to see where they need to be, and where they are a good motivating force. I think that will be especially true for Baker this year as he really seems 100% eager to learn from every experience.

I think that whatever happens Draper is trying his best at the lta and looks to be detirmined to get results, which is good, but I think perhaps he needs to remember to provide the carrot as well as the stick to the lower ranked players.

Edit: Parmer did lose the 3/4th play off to Lee, retiring in the third so maybe that's why the AELTA didn't give a wildcard to him. Mjd I don't think Draper meant it in that sense rather that he was disappointed that the AELTA didn't do what he told them to! (Maybe they just couldn't be bothered to choose foreign players to offer the wildcards to!?)

Personally I think Drapers problem is probably that he doesn't follow the careers of the lower ranked players in the same way that we do. He may know their results but not the circunmstances behind them, and he spends more of his time, kissing the Stella Artois tournament director's bottom with services to British tennis awards for giving wild cards to foreigners, gaining sponsorship deals, denying real talent like Yasmin Clarke a chance to shine, and trying to get John McEnroe or Jimmy Connors to spend 10 minutes with some 12 year olds.

I hope one of the wildcards he was 'disappointed' to see handed out goes and spanks a glamour player or better yet, Fish, Phillippoussis or Lopez for stealing their queens wild card!

Rant over. I'm delighted that AELTC saw sense!