Which British player will do best in October-November ?

Sheddie · administrator

Which British player will do best in October-November ?

Count Zero · Tennis legend

thats a diffcult one as each will have different goals tobe judged by, Alex has the most likley possibility of being regarded the 'best' if he breaks the top 100 but he will have to perform consistently well to reach it, as although he has little to points to defend he does have the 50 point win right at the end.

He has been playign good tennis it seems but he must cut out, what appear on the surface to be, the sloppy matches, eg the 2nd loss v Stoppini in france, as i am sure he would have felt he could beat Jonny in qf's. He played well in Thailand but must keep working hard, if alex doesnt break the top 100, even if only briefly, then i think when he reflects on the year he may well be slighty dissapointed, we really want him to be in a position to be a DE for the AO at least.

Josh now need to be regaurly winning challenger matches, its diffciult cause they are all going to be strong challenger fields, but he has to try and make that push up, the same probably applies for jamie baker, maybe mixing in some futures to make the top 250 1st, if you look a back at how boggo developed he moved on to the challenger circuit fairly early (josh is only a year ir so younger than alex remember), with only the odd futures, it tough and they will need to work very hard but its a step they need to take, unless they do an andy and skip it totally, unlikey tho.

A big step for Josh will be performing overseas, so far all his results are really uk based, its not so easy and some players never manage it (hilton) but it is vital for the next step, i think jamie may be a bit better in that regard tho.

Auckland is in a interesting position, his doubles and singles ranks dont mix currently, his form at mumbai suggests he should be a top 200 player at least, the hard part is getting there if he wants to keep progressing in the doubles, he will need a lot of weeks like mumbi, but i would imagine those matches physcilay take a lot out of you (esp as i would iamgien it was hot/humind over there), he playesd 11 sets and 2 champ tb's last week (inc qualies) and will be intersting to see how ho does this week.

Arvind i feel is on the wind down, its a shame, but i wonder how long he will keep plodding around the circuit, hes dropped out the top 250 and as a result cant find challenger entries so easily. i've no doubt that he could still win his fair share of futures if he wished, but probably he could earn more in a coaching job now and wont have the travel so much, will be intersting to see what he chooses.

my brains too tired to write anymore right now.

Sheddie · administrator

In order to break the top 100, Alex needs 95 more ranking points. In reality he actually needs 145 because he's defending 50 points from winning Sunderland in 2005, he should have a good chance of winning Nottingham and Shrewsbury as he'll probably be top seed in both those challengers.

He'll need to also do well in the 50Ks, Aachen and Kolding [which are +H] and Helsinki. Aachen and Kolding will be tricky as they have a fair few top 100 players entered due to clashing with the masters series tournaments. However, Alex is definately capable of beating top 100 players indoors.

I agree, Alex's aim for the end of the year has to be a ranking of around 110 which would probably get him into the Aussie Open as there are always so many withdrawals.

Jamie Baker's shown that he's capable now of winning 15Ks, doing well in 25Ks and 50Ks is the next step up. He's playing a lot in the States over the next couple of months, it'll be tough as he'll have to qualify for each challenger but the fields aren't as strong as in Europe. He had some disappointing results over there post-Wimbledon but hopefully the experience of working with Peter Lundgren and Brad Gilbert at the Davis Cup will have given him the belief that he can really start to make inroads at challenger level. His aim is to get into the top 250 by the end of the year, he needs 21 more points so he could do with getting to a quarter-final of one of those challengers in the States. Playing well overseas isn't really a problem for Jamie, he did extremely well in Mexico in 2005, a place where lots of Brits have struggled due to the altitude. He also did well in Australia and NZ earlier this year.

Josh hasn't got too many points to defend as he was injured a lot this time last year so hopefully he can get close to the top 200 by the end of the year. The European indoor challengers should suit his game, he was playing well in the States, just had some rotten draws. I think he should just concentrate on the challengers, once you get to a ranking of about 250, futures pts can only take you so far and Josh is god enough to do well at challenger level. It'd be good to see him go for a couple of ATPs aswell, maybe Lyon. Like Jamie, I don't think doing well overseas will be too much of a problem for Josh, he did well in New York.

I think that Auckland's main focus is now his doubles ranking even though he's been doing well at singles, he really wants to get to around 70-75 by the end of the year to give him and Delgado, a chance of making the Aussie Open cut. I doubt that he'll go for any of the European ATPs as they won't make the doubles cut there, he'll have to go for the challengers where he can play singles qualies and will be in with a chance of going far in the doubles. Singles-wise, hopefully he can break the top 300 by the end of 2006 which will mean a place in the Aussie Open qualies draw, he needs about 5 or 6 more points to do that, he can achieve that by qualifying and winning a round in one of the challengers.

I think Delgado is also going to be mainly concentrating on his doubles ranking, he's kept saying how he feels he can still break the top 100 singles, but it looks like doubles is going to be his best chance of doing that. If he can get to around 90-95 by the end of 2006, he and Auckland should have a chance of just making the cut.

Big Arvs seems to be injured at the moment

Robxon · Lower Club Player

UltimateBoggoFan wrote:

... and Josh is god ....

Does this herald another change of name UBF?

Oh quoted out of context? Just shows how careful one needs to be. Imagine dealing with the British tennis media.

-- Edited by Robxon at 23:19, 2006-10-04

Sheddie · administrator

Robxon wrote:

UltimateBoggoFan wrote:

... and Josh is god ....

Does this herald another change of name UBF?

Oh quoted out of context? Just shows how careful one needs to be. Imagine dealing with the British tennis media.

-- Edited by Robxon at 23:19, 2006-10-04

Lol

Well spotted

My changes of faith have been exposed yet again

No, I think I'll stay as UBF for quite a while yet [though I must admit to being tempted to change to UltimateAucklandFan last week

]

VSandhi20 · Futures qualifying

if anyone's going to do well, then its boggo, it his favourite time of the year! and he always does well in the major challengers, lets hope he wins a challenger and aim for qualifying in an ATP tournie, likely to be St Petersburg.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

alex has enetred nottingham challeneger which indicates that vienna will be the last atp he will try for this year, hopfully though if he can keep playing consistently well he may be able to enter qualies for some of the pre AO Atps where he could make big gains as he has nothing to defend untill bergamo.

i think it makes sense to play out the challengers after vienna (5 in a row if he wishes, with a big one in ukraine), he knows that its very uinlikey there will be any players in them he cant beat (but still might lose too, its alex afterall )

i think these chalnnegres even the 50kers willl have farily strong fields as there arnt any atp events tho.