GB Player Watch

First topic message reminder :

Colin Fleming and Ross Hutchins have reached the final of the Malaysia Open by beating No. 1 seeds Frystenberg and Matkowski.

Also both Laura Robson and Heather Watson have made it through opening qualifying rounds at China Open.

Well done to all

Dan Evans has had a second round Challenger defeat last week followed by a first round defeat this week. I hope that isn’t the sound of a bubble bursting that I hear

bradman99.94 wrote:Dan Evans has had a second round Challenger defeat last week followed by a first round defeat this week. I hope that isn’t the sound of a bubble bursting that I hear

That's just the challenger circuit for you really. In his three events in the US, he had a very tough draw R1 in the first one. Suffered with severe tooth problems (which required extracting right after) during his second round match and lost a relatively tight match against a similarly ranked guy who appeared to have served impeccably in the latest.

Although it remains to be seen how far Dan will go, it's probably not fair to judge him on this little run of events.

The Legacy of Mr Roger Draper:  Becomes Chief Exec of the LTA in 2006 and leaves Sep 2013, several million pounds richer.  He made many claims as to what he was going to achieve in terms of players in the top twenty and top hundred.  Let's examine the record:

Jan 2006 (Before Draper Era)
British Men
Number in top 100: 3
Number in top 300: 11

British Women
Number in top 100: 0
Number in top 300: 5

Oct 2013 (End Result of Draper Era)
British Men
Number in top 100: 1
Number in top 300: 4

British Women
Number in top 100: 1
Number in top 300: 7

So All together Men & Women
......................... Jan 2006 ........... Oct 2013
Top 100 ............... 3 ...................... 2
Top 300 ............. 16 ..................... 11

An impressive record given the claims Draper made during his tenure plus the huge sums spent on the cause (head hunting of "top" coaches plus the National Tennis Centre in Roehampton).

The placing of the National Tennis Centre in an exclusive (and expensive) location in London at the heart of the densest area for tennis courts in the country, rather than say, Manchester, was truly inspirational.

@NS... It has been a while since we heard from you. Very glad to see you back.

Let us just take ATP (Top 100 - as of 2 Jan 2006/7 Oct 2013) -

Jan 2006 - Rusedski, Henman, Murray
Oct 2013 - Murray (two retired) No one replaced them. Is it a Draper issue, or lack of player talent, or both?

Top 300 (in addition to the above, using the dates)

Jan 2006 - #168, Bogdanovic, #201 Parmar, #239 Hilton, Mark, # 255 Marray, Jonathan (GBR), # 257 Delgado, Jamie (GBR), # 289 Auckland, James (GBR), # 291 Bloomfield, Richard (GBR), # 297 Smith, Matthew (GBR).

Oct 2013 - #155 Evans, Daniel (GBR), #183 Ward, James (GBR), #254 Cox, Daniel (GBR)

again, the same question.

Data from ATP website using URLs of the form - http://www.atpworldtour.com/Rankings/Singles.aspx?d=07.10.2013&r=201&c=GBR# .

laverfan wrote:@NS... It has been a while since we heard from you. Very glad to see you back.

Let us just take ATP (Top 100 - as of 2 Jan 2006/7 Oct 2013) -

... Is it a Draper issue, or lack of player talent, or both?

Top 300 (in addition to the above, using the dates)

... again, the same question.

Hi thanks for your warm re-welcome and good to see that under Yours & JuliusMarkus stewardship the 606v2 tennis section has continued to thrive unlike others such as my tennis lounge that is now no longer in existence.

I am going to take a robust attitude to your questions with the rejoinder - it is completely irrelevant to the point I was "trying" to make:  Drapers promises and justification for his big spend have been shown to be false & supports a view that he never had a clue in the first place.  Take a look at the following article and pay particular attention to the section following "Empty promises during Draper’s five-year reign"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/tennis/8357708/Roger-Draper-fails-to-turn-British-tennis-around-after-five-years-and-250m.html

[The last bit is in fact not too bad but as of Oct 2013 we can see that the "legacy" is in fact about a one-third fall off in overall strength at the elite  level from when he joined despite Drapers "promises".   It was on the basis of those promises that he was given the job in the first place and given all that cash to spend to meet the vision he had sold the LTA. All we need to do is to compare his "vision" with the actual reality of British Tennis taking into account the money spent - when evaluating Draper's reign as head honcho of the LTA].


My view is that he has made matters worse by centralising facilities in one of the most expensive places to live in Great Britain, in an area that already had an excess of facilities (the siting of the National Tennis Centre at Roehampton).  The money should have been spent on a network of facilities around the country.

ps and aside: I had tried rejoining 606v2 earlier but the new password email I could never find in my inbox. In the latest attempt I found the email in the bin folder rather than the inbox (or even spam folder). Weird.

I am happy to be a. scolded for my lack of faith, and, b. to have you back. I will gladly submit to your gentle rebuke.

All the numbers may be the Bass to the Melody here...

One British player, who spoke to Telegraph Sport on condition of anonymity, had this to say about Draper’s administration: “Too much money has been wasted on employing foreign coaches and staff on big salaries and they never gave a ----.
"Actually, there aren’t enough people who care about developing British tennis so, essentially, Draper is fighting a losing battle.”
Whoever said that tennis in this country is not a sport, just a fortnight, was wrong: tennis in Britain is a fortnight and 52 weeks of griping at the LTA.

This evaluation is very telling.

I quite agree that centralisation of facilities for a sport which requires a network of grass-roots facilities is a bad idea. But it is an age-old debate, that has no absolute right or wrong. Empires of the yore (Ottoman, Roman, British, French, Russian,...) could not solve this thorny issue, and Draper is no Caliph.

Happy to see Lydian is still pushing his progeny within this climate to thrive and grow.

If we had Roger Draper like figures in charge of government ministries, British business etc would this country be a better place / would it be better run?  For all I know Roger Draper might in fact be representative of the average CEO, the average Ministerial Secretary.  I mean try looking into the eyes of that George Osborne for any signs of intelligence: This is one taken at Margaret Thatchers funeral:





The three stooges?

The guy on the right was a former coach of Roger Federer, and it is said that most of his time at the LTA was spent in an alcoholic haze (allegedly).  John Lloyd isn't too bad but he was a bit of a part timer and a bit too selfish and unyielding in his thinking.

Nore stat.... hmm it rings a bell....

John Lloyd is ok I suppose... But he did once say after Murray lost to Rafa at Wimbledon that Murray needs to shave before big matches.

That's not a typo, Murray had quite long stubble at the time and his expert advice to Murray was that he should shave!

I missed that piece of news but it turns out the comment came from John Lloyds brother David Lloyd: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/tennis/14052433

Looking at David Lloyds list of achievements on Wikipedia it is quite an eye opener: "became a leading figure in the Lawn Tennis Association. He founded the David Lloyd Leisure Clubs, Next Generation fitness clubs and David Lloyd Resorts as a businessman. He was also chairman of Hull City A.F.C. and Hull F.C. leaving them both on the verge of bankruptcy. He also coached Tim Henman.

... As of 2012, Lloyd is a luxury real estate developer in Phuket" [Thailand].

I hope that last bit is all above board & he is not doing his little bit for the droog trade nor helping to increase the rate of extinction of exotic animals - the following suggests it's okay:
http://www.icij.org/offshore/britons-snapped-luxury-villas-thai-island

BBC have got that wrong NS. I remember watching it. Straight after he lost to Rafa in the semis. It was John Lloyd and he said something like 'Rafa and Roger come out clean shaven and have this smart demeanor like they mean business. Look at Andy, hasn't shaved in days. These are the things he has to take more seriously if he wants to win these things'

I can remember the look on Becker's face. It said "I don't get paid enough to have to listen to this!"

Clearly Draper was getting paid far too much and the promises made were unrealistic. However, it does seem to me that there have been positive signs in the juniors - whivh is where progress needs to show first. We have had three junior slam champions in Draper's reign, which compares favourably with most countries (and is unheard of previously). Both the mens and womens games seem to have rekatively young promising players coming through. The 9 players after Andy in the GB top 10 have improved their rankings by a combined total of 2000+ places.

I have no idea whether he has had any influence but at the end of his reign im far more positive about the future than i was at the start.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/tennis/24835852

And the plot thickens. This makes for very interesting reading.

Only a 10k futures event but good to see 20 yr old Oli Golding faces 18 yr old Luke Bambridge in a final tomorrow. Bambridge beat 19 yr old Liam Broady in a final set tiebreak in the SF, so a good event all-round for the young Brits.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/tennis/24985591

Elena Baltacha retires. I wish her well for the future. Very gutsy player indeed.

That's sad. Saw her win one of the Nottingham Challengers this year in a very exciting match. Yes I agree she was a "gutsy" player.

Sad to see Bally retire, but probably the right decision. I always thought she had the capability to get a bit higher in the rankings than she ever managed, but health and injury issues always got in the way of her having a long run of playing.

...and catalysed no doubt by new LTA policy of not funding over 24 year old players any more given her ranking was now the wrong side of 200. Not a bad career, and our only decent female player for a long time. She wants to pursue a career in coaching which is good, we need more ex-players like her committed to developing home grown talent.

Shame Henman, for all his success and media profile, never puts much back into British Tennis...  

lydian wrote:...and catalysed no doubt by new LTA policy of not funding over 24 year old players any more given her ranking was now the wrong side of 200. ...  

Does that include use of facilities and medical care?   Baltacha's story is inspirational having to fight and cope with a life threatening liver disease.

Born Slippy wrote:Only a 10k futures event but good to see 20 yr old Oli Golding faces 18 yr old Luke Bambridge in a final tomorrow. Bambridge beat 19 yr old Liam Broady in a final set tiebreak in the SF, so a good event all-round for the young Brits.

Golding follows up last week's title with another one this week. Good end to what looks to have been a frustrating season with a couple of months out with injuries.