Var wrote:

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Coup Droit wrote:

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As it's a dead quiet day today, due to weather, just pointing out the 'big scandal' in tennis in a lot of Aussie papers this week has been the 'shock defection' (Canberra Times) of Charlie Camus - Australia's top junior, currently #17 - to France

Charlie is very high profile, been with Lleyton Hewitt a lot, won their Junior Sportsman of the year (or something like that), has been connected with the adult Davis Cup team (as well as playing for the Junior one, of course)

Supposedly the FFT gave him a better offer.......

Sorry to put this in adults - I'll put it in juniors other stuff too - but it's getting a lot of focus, especially in the downtime when there's no tennis.....

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 French will be very pleased, who was their last top ten tennis player? 

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 Lucas Pouille reached no.10 in 2018, has there been anyone after that?

Anyway, that's a bit of an ouch for Aussie. 

Coup Droit wrote:

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Yes, it's certainly a big embarrassment/problem for the Aussie federation (maybe more now, than in hindsight - certainly it's very high profile now, but Charlie may well be 150 in the world in 5 years time, and no one really cares - such is the nature of junior rankings)

Supposedly Charlie's younger brother is a top U12 players. And will continue to represent Australia.

Until a a better offer comes along?

If you were the Aussie federation, you wouldn't invest too much in him, would you?

France have an issue, really, too.

There will be no girls in the MD at the Aussie Junior Open, apart from Ksenia Efremova, ranked about 130, who was Russian until 5 months ago, and now represents France. The FFT have wangled her a wildcard because (a) she's photogenic and has zillions of insta followers and (b) she managed to win a 15k adult event at Christmas - the 5th youngest ever to do so - which is great but....

There are a few home-grown boys but it's not a good look for the FFT - they can't even produce some decent youngsters on their own but have to go poaching other people's.... (and, yes, Ksenia has lived in France for 3-4 years and done her tennis there but not been part of the FFT programme, obviously). And that obviously feeds into the dearth of top adult players - a real chasm with all hope being on Fils, Van Asche, maybe Jaquemot.....

-- Edited by Coup Droit on Monday 8th of January 2024 09:11:05 AM

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 Mmm. Me thinks we have been pretty lucky with Antipodean defections over the years, players who could have played for their birth country, Cam, Jo Konta (loved to watch Jo play) Laura and I am sure there are more. 

Coup Droit wrote:

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As it's a dead quiet day today, due to weather, just pointing out the 'big scandal' in tennis in a lot of Aussie papers this week has been the 'shock defection' (Canberra Times) of Charlie Camus - Australia's top junior, currently #17 - to France

Charlie is very high profile, been with Lleyton Hewitt a lot, won their Junior Sportsman of the year (or something like that), has been connected with the adult Davis Cup team (as well as playing for the Junior one, of course)

Supposedly the FFT gave him a better offer.......

Sorry to put this in adults - I'll put it in juniors other stuff too - but it's getting a lot of focus, especially in the downtime when there's no tennis.....

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Interesting article about the affair by Marc McGowan for the respected Melbourne newspaper, The Age (roughly equivalent to The Times here, though it hasn't the same national status), which also looks at various other tennis "defections".

RainDelay wrote:

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Ryan a set up

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 But lost the second and a break down in the third