Week 35 - Challenger ($50,000) - Bangkok, Thailand (Hard)

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

RE: Week 35 - Challenger ($50,000) - Bangkok, Thailand (Hard)

indiana · Tennis legend

It is important in time to develop a game for the wind, Kyle would be far from the first GB player that has suffered in the wind if that is much of the cause here.

For Andy's first Grand Slam title in New York, he adapted pretty well to at times a full on gale in his SF and it was pretty windy in the final.

Adverse conditions can arrive at very important times, players need to have a strategy to fall back on.

So could be a good experience in some ways, if it causes Kyle and his team to consider this more.

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

The second seeds prove too strong for the Anglo-Irish pair:

SF: (2) Chen Ti & Peng Hsien-Yin (TPE/TPE) CR 234 (120+114) defeated James Cluskey (IRL) & Kyle Edmund UNR by 4 & 4

steven · Tennis legend

Very surprised to see this result (the scoreline, especially) when I got back this morning. I wonder what went wrong. Obviously Thompson had beaten the 2nd seed yesterday too but that was much closer and he also lost to Liam last week.

QF: (6) Kyle Edmund WR 243 lost to Jordan Thompson (AUS) WR 278 (CH 265 in Jun) by 3 & 1

korriban · Challenger level

Congratulations to Hyeon Chung of Korea who beat the top seed to reach his maiden CH final. Obviously he shouldn't have done, but he did. He is 18, about 16 months younger than Kyle, and this win takes him into the top 200, having started the year around 550ish.

Looks another good prospect, with some notable results in juniors without quite gaining the fanfare of others. Yet another overseas player who appears not to have read the "everyone does it at their own pace" script. If you are good enough.....

baxi2 · Lower Club Player

I seem to remember Liam beating Kyle last time they played by a similar score ?

Spectator · All-time great

I suspect, Korriban, that Hyeon Chung has quite a bit of fanfare - just not in Britain! He's primarily played on the Asian circuit, I think.

I don't regard the "at their own pace" as an excuse: different people will progress at different rates.

korriban · Challenger level

Spectator wrote:
I suspect, Korriban, that Hyeon Chung has quite a bit of fanfare - just not in Britain! He's primarily played on the Asian circuit, I think.

I don't regard the "at their own pace" as an excuse: different people will progress at different rates.

I meant fanfare as a junior, where players from all countries, if very good, tend to be singled out. Hyeon did have a few notable wins at junior slams and was often in the mix, but I don't recall him as a finalist or winner.

The "at their own pace" is incontestable, since by definition it applies to every player who ever played the game. People only tend to mention it, however, when young up and coming players lose matches that THEY THEMSELVES would probably expect to win, or over a period of time generally underperform against their own and outside expectations. I wouldn't call it an excuse, but it's not an argument people employ with much success in business when reporting on performance below budget......it works for a while, but business, like sport is ruthless........

As a GB tennis supporters forum, it is entirely natural to look for positives in defeat, to post-rationalise any set backs and to minimise pressure on players. I hope I'm somewhat guilty of this myself........, but I do think we sometimes overdo it, which probably wouldnt be the case if we, like the French or Spanish, had a large group of genuinely talented players.

Spectator · All-time great

He made the finals of Wimbledon in 2013 (beat Kyrgios and Coric, lost to Quinzi) - which garnered him a reasonable amount of attention. I'm not a huge follower of South Korean tennis, but I suspect that he's their first really good junior to have made a decent transition (in recent years? ever?) He's certainly their highest-ranked player at present. Coming up behind him is Duckhee Lee, who is, inter alia, profoundly deaf. Would be nice if they were both successful on the main tour. Get the sense that South Korea has been waiting a while for real success!

indiana · Tennis legend

I'd say that folk often emphasise the "everyone progresses at their own pace" point when others repeatedly bring up peer to peer comparisons, usually fixing on these currently progressing quicker than say a particular Brit, while ignoring these that have progressed slower, have for now fallen behind the Brit and are much less in the public eye.

indiana · Tennis legend

As a trained statistician ( and also just always liking numbers ! ), I find much about tennis statistics and rankings fascinating, and post quite often about rankings.

As a trained statistician, I am also very much aware of how many people can read too much into statistics and / or do not take nearly enough account of other factors.

korriban · Challenger level

Indy. Also love my numbers. Trained in econometrics, spent years building financial forecasting models.

But there's nothing more fascinating than peer to peer comparison......which ultimately is what tennis is all about. One player wins, one player loses. Factors galore in the years and days before the match, about the set-up of the match, and variables of every colour during the match. But only one outcome on record, W or L.

Where I use comparisons or peer groups, it tends to be players who are or were mentioned in the same breath as some of our top juniors when they were juniors. So the "2011" top 10 (which included Oli and Vesely and Thiem and Frantangelo and Monteiro and younger players like Liam and Saville) and the "2013" top 10 (including the likes of Kyle, Kyrgios, Quinzi, Coric (96ers too), etc) are good examples. Or sometimes we all look at the top players under 20 under 21, etc. I don't see the point of including everyone else who is off the radar to begin with. Compared to every other "1993er" in the world who had an ITF ranking, Oli (with a mid 300s pro ranking) looks outstanding. To be entirely fair and statistically accurate, he's outperformed most of the world and almost all of his full peer group. But would HE be happy with that? No. Would that be the comparison HE would be making? No. Is that the relevant sample HE would choose to compare himself with? No. He'd look at the boys of the same age whom he was tussling with back in those heady junior days and compare notes and progress.....which is generally the way I look at it.

Nothing sinister.

indiana · Tennis legend

korriban, speaking as someone not intending to be silly :) ...

.....I was not remotely talking about comparing with those who were not on the radar to begin with. I was suggesting that there were perhaps others who were on the radar, but have fallen off it, or at least certainly behind Kyle.

I agree that there are different ways of looking at things. I had noticed recently that Kyle was then the 5th ranked teenager in the world, indeed posted at the time about it. So as soon as you specifically mentioned him in comparison to four others, I realised these were the specific four ahead of him. All four younger, yes, Kyle is getting to be an old teenager, but he still overall compares pretty favourably.

It's all pretty interesting, but how important is debatable. Interesting again is the figures in the Oli thread about the current senior top 20 and how highly ranked they were as juniors, looking at the aspect of how important is it to have been a highly ranked junior, since ultimately it's where he ends up as a senior that is of most interest. I think in general it probably is pretty important, and there are reasons for many of the outliers, in particular Nadal ( too good ! ) and Isner, but there may still be room for some seriously later developers.

In general, Kyle was a highly ranked junior - good basis, he has fallen behind some peers - better to be ahead, but not a major future concern, and he himself has been steadily progressing - good.

indiana · Tennis legend

Anyway, I do hope that Kyle can pick things up again after last week's unexpectedly decisive loss.

I make no pretence ( and it is clear from other discussions ) that I think everything connected with Kyle is fine just now. There are questions that have been legitimately raised such as why has he missed the US Open qualifying. Maybe it was "suggested" to him that he should !

Hopefully, he can have a strong end to the year

korriban · Challenger level

Young Hyeon Chung beat Thompson in straight sets to earn his first CH tournament win. Should be ranked in the 170s next week.