2024 PLAYER OF THE SEASON VOTE - FINAL

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

2024 PLAYER OF THE SEASON VOTE - FINAL

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

And if you vote, please say when you vote and who for and maybe why - it saves me constantly trying to update to keep the thread going and your voices are much more interesting than mine!

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

I found this one so hard.

Henry - Wimbledon champ and a rise to the Tour Finals Final is hard to surpass

Katie - winning a WTA 500 and 250 and edge of the top 20 is amazing

Sonay - won a 250, rose up the rankings from outside the top 200 to in the top 100.

Jake - a run that was inspirational and into the top 100 from 638!!

Jake had an epic ranking rise, the best really but maybe lesser opponents? He won a PoM title and 2 runners up but so did Henry; Sonay won 7 titles, Henry 6, Jake 5 , Sonay boasted an 85% win/loss record, the best of the lot; Henry took the biggest doubles title and only slam winner; Katie won a WTA500 title, the best singles win of the lot.

Frankly it is impossible - so I have gone with what inspired me the most and that was, in fact, Henry winning Wimbledon and his rise back from splitting with Julian to form a partnership of friendship and joy with Harri.

I am sure I have changed my thoughts from earlier but Henry, as of this moment, gets my vote. If I came back in a day or two it would probably be different and, indeed, I would be happy for any of these 4 to be the winner on Sunday evening

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

4 votes in already - and 4 players have a vote! This could be fun!

Danny1312 · Junior player

It is so hard but I really wanted more people to emerge and Jake gave me that at the end of the season!

Tanaqui · Club Coach

I voted for Jake (again) and I'm going to start by repeating what I wrote for the first round.

He didn't just start his post-college career with a bang by winning the Nottingham 125 Challenger but went on winning, including getting through a round at Wimbledon and taking a set of Djokovic. By the end of the year, those 4 Challenger titles (and a win at ATP250 level) meant he'd broken into the top 100, and has stayed there: no dipping in for a couple of weeks and then dropping back out. And not all those wins have come easily: he's had a lot of 3-set matches where he's had to dig deep and fight hard and figure out after losing the first set how to counteract what's coming at him from the other side of the net. That 83% Win/Loss record suggests he's pretty good at that!

Jon talked about Henry being the player who inspired him most and Jake was that player for me this year. The tennis was part of that, but it was also things like Jake dealing (awkwardly but well) with the tearful little girl mascot before a match at Nottingham. While I don't think Jake will reach the heights Andy M did, he came on the scene just at the right time to soften the blow for me of Andy retiring and give me someone I'm very excited to follow and root for.

-- Edited by Tanaqui on Thursday 9th of January 2025 09:40:12 PM

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Tanaqui wrote:
I voted for Jake (again) and I'm going to start by repeating what I wrote for the first round.

He didn't just start his post-college career with a bang by winning the Nottingham 125 Challenger but went on winning, including getting through a round at Wimbledon and taking a set of Djokovic. By the end of the year, those 4 Challenger titles (and a win at ATP250 level) meant he'd broken into the top 100, and has stayed there: no dipping in for a couple of weeks and then dropping back out. And not all those wins have come easily: he's had a lot of 3-set matches where he's had to dig deep and fight hard and figure out after losing the first set how to counteract what's coming at him from the other side of the net. That 83% Win/Loss record suggests he's pretty good at that!

Jon talked about Henry being the player who inspired him most and Jake was that player for me this year. The tennis was part of that, but it was also things like Jake dealing (awkwardly but well) with the tearful little girl mascot before a match at Nottingham. While I don't think Jake will reach the heights Andy M did, he came on the scene just at the right time to soften the blow for me of Andy retiring and give me someone I'm very excited to follow and root for.

-- Edited by Tanaqui on Thursday 9th of January 2025 09:40:12 PM

Youre crying, Im not.

indiana · Tennis legend

No hanging about this time other than first having to work out who the dinkum I'm going to vote for. All had great years, well done!

Henry had a wonderful doubles year. of course highlighted by his Wimbledon triumph with Harri. But in a year with such singles successes, well it is doubles

Jake fantastic year with his challenger titles and rise into the top 100 ( though of course with his college successes and previously limited tour outings, he wasn't realistically starting out the year anything close to a WR 638 level player so simply didn't come from that level ). But hey super progress still.

Sonay also had a great rise into the 100 from a higher but much more realistic rankings level, and it was tremendous to see how she progressed with that WTA 250 tittle, plus others, and Wimbledon R3.

But saving my best until last ( err, who's left again? ), ah yes Katie, the one of the 4 I / we have certainly followed the longest, through early real promise, through injuries, illness and at times just genuinely not sure as to how high she could really get in the game, did I see this year coming? - just no - the level at times, the general consistency, the titles ( and maybe more to come? ) my vote once thought through can go no other place than to Katie Boulter. She is my tennis player of 2024.

christ · Futures level

Well, I have reduced it to just four. I think I'm going to be playing rock/ paper/ scissors with myself for a few hours to get this to a more manageable number.

... or maybe one potato, two potato ...

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

indiana wrote:
No hanging about this time other than first having to work out who the dinkum I'm going to vote for. All had great years, well done!

Henry had a wonderful doubles year. of course highlighted by his Wimbledon triumph with Harri. But in a year with such singles successes, well it is doubles

Jake fantastic year with his challenger titles and rise into the top 100 ( though of course with his college successes and previously limited tour outings, he wasn't realistically starting out the year anything close to a WR 638 level player so simply didn't come from that level ). But hey super progress still.

Sonay also had a great rise into the 100 from a higher but much more realistic rankings level, and it was tremendous to see how she progressed with that WTA 250 tittle, plus others, and Wimbledon R3.

But saving my best until last ( err, who's left again? ), ah yes Katie, the one of the 4 I / we have certainly followed the longest, through early real promise, through injuries, illness and at times just genuinely not sure as to how high she could really get in the game, did I see this year coming? - just no - the level at times, the general consistency, the titles ( and maybe more to come? ) my vote once thought through can go no other place than to Katie Boulter. She is my tennis player of 2024.

Im impressed and glad you got to it quickly! Now lets see how she gets on, she is definitely a contender

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

christ wrote:
Well, I have reduced it to just four. I think I'm going to be playing rock/ paper/ scissors with myself for a few hours to get this to a more manageable number.

... or maybe one potato, two potato ...

Its like a version of Squid game!

indiana · Tennis legend

Phew Jon, glad I haven't wasted my vote

Andy Parker · Club Coach

Katie Boulter gets my vote because of her massive improvement in 2024 - it goes beyond rankings and stats and more that for the first time, she is challenging the world's best.

I posted my reasons on an earlier thread, but I think what makes Katie Boulter's season so remarkable is that she pushed on and has become a world contender at a point in her career when most people thought that she would not make the top 100, let alone get to the ranking that she is at now, and at 28, she is the classic late developer, who still probably hasn't reached her peak yet.

Four years ago suffering back injuries and struggling with loss of form, she had slipped to an end of year ranking of 315 - at 24 years old questions were starting to be asked about whether she would ever achieve her potential, and her slim physique was being scrutinised too - was she too skinny for tennis, too fragile and frail - by 2022, she had risen to a ranking of 118. Then came 2023 and she finally broke through and finished the end of season rankings at 50.

In last year's prediction competition on here and you will see that most people thought she would slip backwards, in the rankings and that would be it, but instead last year she won San Diego and Nottingham and came close in Hong Kong and Tokyo and had easily her best season yet, finishing with an end of season ranking of 23.

The thing about Katie is that she plays at her best when in front of a big crowd and prefers the big hitters, as she can then generate her own pace and turn it into an aggressive slug fest, and now she is totally aware that this is how to get her best results and when losing often says that she wasn't aggressive enough. I feel her game transformed last year, now that she is playing the top players more regularly and she now takes the game to her opponents with an aggressive and proactive style that I think will mean she makes further improvements, not only in the rankings, but hopefully meaning she can have a tilt at winning a Grand Slam - Wimbledon perhaps.

Anyway well done Katie - you improved massively when most expected you to fall backwards and so you get my vote.

-- Edited by Andy Parker on Thursday 9th of January 2025 11:05:51 PM

-- Edited by Andy Parker on Thursday 9th of January 2025 11:09:03 PM

AnnaM · Junior player

A difficult vote for sure; all deserve to win.

The toss-up decision is that Anna had a training session at David Lloyd Edinburgh with Jacob 8 years ago when he had no beard. He was good then, but has got much better over the last year!

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

19 votes in so far - too early for scores to be announced, weve over 2 days left here- so Ill not do that until tonight at the earliest.