More Retirements ?

Spectator · All-time great

More Retirements ?

philwrig · Hall of fame

I spoke to Josh at Ilkley and he was targeting a return to pro tennis this year after injury, clearly he's had a change of heart, so I wish him the very best of luck for his basketball career.

-- Edited by philwrig on Monday 3rd of October 2016 04:05:48 PM

steven · Tennis legend

The only way to get the full version of this kind of story is to tweet the link speculatively and hope someone fills in the gaps if it's wrong. In this case, Josh himself says:

"will still be training and competing seriously with tennis but have picked basketball back up this year"

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

He's obviously been enjoying playing the UK team tennis stuff (I say 'obviously' simply because he seems to have been doing it practically every week)

Which is great.

And will 'keep his eye in', so to speak.

He's very young, still. I hope he has a great time with the basketball. And pursues one/the other/both sports in whichever way works best for him.

But it's certainly true that, as with Oli, and George Morgan, and others, it's another big tennis talent who has not managed to find a way of making it work in the UK. (Yet?). Which is a shame....

scottie1 · Futures level

Have Smethurst Rice and Milton retired from playing on the tour ? Thought I read Smethurst and Milton had decided to pack it in after the Wimbledon qualifying

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

scottie1 wrote:
Have Smethurst Rice and Milton retired from playing on the tour ? Thought I read Smethurst and Milton had decided to pack it in after the Wimbledon qualifying

I spoke to them both at Wimbledon. Dan was going to finish the grass court season, play some German League tennis and then pack it in. He seems to be coaching at Huddersfield now. As for Milts, he is not playing on the tour right now and may indeed have finished. But his exact words were "never say never". If he catches the bug again, he may play some more but it doesn't seem likely.

Don't know about Dave Rice, but I think I've seen somewhere on here that he has also packed it in.

Coup Droit · Tennis legend

And, of course, I have Dan S and Milts on my top 10 list for Sim this year...... cry cry cry

I mean, they could have dropped me a quick line back in Jan and let me know, don't you think?????

Although I've just about got over it by now, seeing as there hasn't been sight nor sound of them for ages now. (But not completely got over it, as you can tell...... smile )

TMH · Futures qualifying

It seems the group in their mid to late twenties who floated around the 200s to the 500s are all packing it in. It's a shame, because I feel all of them had the ability to break the top 200, but of course in this sport that's not really sustainable for a living (which is a joke, quite frankly, given the money floating around at the top of the sport. The distribution is pathetic).

Especially Smethurst. After that challenger run I had such high hopes for him.

The Dark Knight · Improver

Interesting tweet from Dan today regarding the lack of pro tournaments in the UK (twitter.com/dansmethurst90). He has hit the nail on the head. The LTA regime's ludicrous over emphasis on participation has destroyed opportunities to capitalise on the success of Andy, Kyle, Evo, etc to get more players up the rankings. I was also staggered to see hear that nobody from the LTA has watched or contacted Bambo & others for over two years! Shame on the LTA if they let the likes of Dan S & Milts leave the game. They could be used to develop & support our younger players as they have more relevant experience of the pro game than most of the performance team employed by the LTA.

Bob in Spain · Tennis legend

The Dark Knight wrote:
Interesting tweet from Dan today regarding the lack of pro tournaments in the UK (twitter.com/dansmethurst90). He has hit the nail on the head. The LTA regime's ludicrous over emphasis on participation has destroyed opportunities to capitalise on the success of Andy, Kyle, Evo, etc to get more players up the rankings. I was also staggered to see hear that nobody from the LTA has watched or contacted Bambo & others for over two years! Shame on the LTA if they let the likes of Dan S & Milts leave the game. They could be used to develop & support our younger players as they have more relevant experience of the pro game than most of the performance team employed by the LTA.

I posted this on the General Thread today, but given your post above, I thought it might be of interest here as well - if you haven't already seen it.

Scoop of the day

The Performance Bonus Scheme is to be reintroduced next year. The exact format is still to be determined but there will be some kind of age restriction.

The exact quote, and I should stress this was an off the cuff comment and not a detailed explanation of strategy, was that it is "not really cost effective to be funding 28 year olds at futures levels". Have to say that I agree with that.

With regard to the lack of Futures, apparently much of the problem is getting clubs to run them. I was told that, for example, on the USTA Challenger circuit, the clubs split the costs 50/50 with the USTA. In France (and you will know this better than anyone), the futures are joint financed with the FFT putting in 30% and the clubs themselves funding the oher 70%.

In the UK, the LTA have to fund 100% of the cost. They tried getting clubs involved by putting them out to tender on a joint funding basis and got precisely ZERO response. Clearly with 15k tournaments now having morphed into 25k tournaments, this problem has been exacerbated.

indiana · Tennis legend

The Dark Knight wrote:
Interesting tweet from Dan today regarding the lack of pro tournaments in the UK (twitter.com/dansmethurst90). He has hit the nail on the head. The LTA regime's ludicrous over emphasis on participation has destroyed opportunities to capitalise on the success of Andy, Kyle, Evo, etc to get more players up the rankings. I was also staggered to see hear that nobody from the LTA has watched or contacted Bambo & others for over two years! Shame on the LTA if they let the likes of Dan S & Milts leave the game. They could be used to develop & support our younger players as they have more relevant experience of the pro game than most of the performance team employed by the LTA.

Yes, it does look pretty ludicrous in comparison as Dan indicates. Clearly Egypt and Turkey are special cases, but with other big European countries what differentiates them mainly is simply that they are not GB with many of the long standing institutional issues and seeming ongoing organisational / hierarchy issues we have. I just hope that the wonderfully kept GB top 25 tables aren't in future years a record of disappearing depth ( such as it has been ), particularly on the men's side.

As he says good luck to our youngsters re futures and challenger level players seem to have largely taken up residence in North America.

For what our top players have achieved 2016 will go down as a great year ( though not great for our retirees ). For whatever reasons we indeed sure aren't capitalising on this as well as we should be.

-- Edited by indiana on Saturday 22nd of October 2016 02:05:11 AM

goldfish · Futures qualifying

Not sure this is the correct thread but just noting that Andrew Bettles is the new hitting partner for Elena Svitolina.

philwrig · Hall of fame

To be fair to Smethy his retirement was more to do with a serious chronic injury he picked up during his golden run up the rankings, but without doubt the lack of pro tournaments is just incomprehensible, given the fact we were mopping up the points just at the time the rug was pulled from under them.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

It strikes me that Andy Bettles has taken the first potential step into elite level WTA coaching. A fantastic opportunity to work with an elite coach in delivering a performance programme whilst simultaneously getting to understand what is required day to day to. E successful on the WTA.

Oakland2002 · All-time great

SPECTATOR WROTE:

I wouldn't be surprised if there were more who crossed sport in this way. Some of the tennis players are such good athletes generally and make little secret of their fondness for basketball. The French DC team did a video of their basketball attempts. Suffice it to say that Nicolas Mahut probably shouldn't consider leaving the day job, and Richard Gasquet definitely shouldn't! But (surprise, surprise) Gael Monfils looked fairly spectacular. (You then hear Yannick Noah asking him if he has warmed up beforehand ... Monfils giving a sort of 'why would I' response ... Noah in despair ...

I would be!

I think this has much more to do with Yannick's sons background as an NBA player, I cannot see many tennis players migrating to other sports, in terms of athletism they do not come close to some of the athletes at the top of the NBA, NFL or indeed the NHL (those guys can really slide) purely because of the massive pools of talent from which they pick. 120 plus div 1 football schools with rosters of 100 players refined to a draft of about 254 players per year into the NFL where the top 32 (first round) stand a 60:40 chance of making it!

The quick guys turned down places on the US track team because they could catch as well (Heywood Bey sometimes!)

For basketball it's an even smaller draft, and these guys are big, there is a reason Isner plays tennis and Gordon Heywood chose basketball and you have probably never heard of him. Montay Ellis, who is he? an underachieving point guard makes Monfils look arthritic. Imagine if Le Bron James had ever picked up a tennis racket, phenomenally mobile and a basketball dwarf at 6'8" , Odell Beckham junior well the mind boggles.

-- Edited by Oakland2002 on Thursday 15th of December 2016 05:15:25 AM