V2 Youngster Watch

First topic message reminder :

There has been a lot of talk analysing the future prospects of the tennis world on 606v2. There has indeed been a scepticism, and the reality is that in the top tier of the men's game there is no player below the age of 22 challenging for Grand Slam tournaments or any major titles.

Nevertheless, as we have seen in the past, young players can enjoy rapid progress and success, even when it is not expected. They can mature very quickly and rise seemingly out of the blue, as we have seen in the past!

Anyway enough of the deep analysis and speculation, this thread will just be monitoring the progress of the younger players in the Top 50 or so (Blue Group). I know that in Grand Slams there is a lot of exposure of the results, but the reporting on the smaller 250 tournaments is much more limited, so I will be keeping a log on the progress of certain young players, updating their performance every week. This is not my TWS Series 2, it is something a bit different

Nominated Players:
Blue Group:
Milos Raonic
Bernard Tomic
David Goffin
Ryan Harrison
Grigor Dimitrov
Jerzy Janowicz

Red Group:
Cedrik Marcel Stebe
Jack Sock
James Duckworth
Andrey Kuznetsov
Yuki Bhambri

Green Group:
Oliver Golding (18)
Philip Peliwo (18)
Kimmer Coppejans (18)
Luke Saville (18)
Dominic Thiem (19)

Amritia's 'ones to watch out for in 2013':
-Jerzy Janowicz
-Milos Raonic
-Bernard Tomic

Blue Group Progress Updates-
Week One:
Tomic:
Bangkok:
R1- Beat Garcia Lopez
R2- Beat Sela
QF- Lost to Gasquet

Dimitrov:
Bangkok:
R1- Beat Yang
R2- Lost to Gasquet

Raonic:
Bangkok:
R1- BYE
R2- Beat Karlovic
QF- Lost to Niemenen

Harrison:
Not playing ATP tour level tournament this week.

Goffin:
Not playing ATP tour level tournament this week.


Week Two:
Tomic:
Tokyo:
R1- Lost to Tursunov

Dimitrov:
Tokyo:
R1- Lost to Monaco

Raonic:
Tokyo:
R1- Beat Stepanek
R2- Beat Triocki
QF- Beat Tipsarevic
SF- Beat Murray
F- Lost to Nishikori

Harrison:
Beijing:
R1- Lost to F.Lopez

Goffin:
Not playing ATP tour level tournament this week.

Week Three:
Tomic:
Shanghai:
R1- Lost to F.Mayer

Dimitrov:
Shanghai:
R1- Beat Andujar
R2- Lost to Djokovic

Raonic:
Shanghai:
R1- Beat Matosevic
R2- Lost to Baghdatis

Harrison:
Shanghai:
R1- Lost to Kohlschreiber

Goffin:
Not playing ATP tour level tournament this week.

Raonic in the final against Nishokiri tomorrow- Tokyo would be probably the biggest title of his career.
http://www.atpworldtour.com/Scores/schedule.aspx?EventId=329

I'm going for a Nishikori win...and I certainly hope he does.

Raonic loses to Nishokiri in 3 sets, 3rd set was a bagel!
Well done to both, promising prospects for the future.

Born Slippy wrote:Just looking at the green group. Both Saville and Golding are in futures action. Saville has reached the SF and Golding is into the final in Australia and Qatar respectively.

May not sound much but a title will move Saville up about 50 places into the top 350 and will edge Golding up near the top 400. Starting to get near the level they can get direct entry to some of the weaker challengers.

Saville lost in the SF and Golding lost his final. Both will still make decent upward progress in the rankings. All a learning experience at this stage.

I've had a look at the draw for the Shanghai Masters.

Tomic plays Mayer in the 1st round. The winner plays Murray after that.
Raonic plays a qualifier in Round 1 with possibly a 3rd round match v Tsonga.
Dimitrov plays Andujar is Round 1. The winner will play Mr Djokovic.
Harrison plays Kohli in Round 1.

Glad for Kei. Even though he technically does not belong on this thread, his progress has been marred by injuries and I am still hopeful that he can go on to do some great things - maybe even win a slam or a few. I really like his game when he is playing well.

I cannot quite warm up to Raonic. He is ok and it will be good if he does well - just to mix things up at the top as we have been seeing the same faces for too long now (not only top four but even a few spots after that). Maybe I have just had the bad luck of seeing some of his worse matches but he strikes me as too one-dimensional and not sufficiently versatile to really make it to the very top. Sort of like a somewhat improved version of Isner, but certainly closer to someone like Isner than to your typical No. 1 player.

I do wonder where the first No. 1 player from the next generation will come from. None of the youngsters really look like they would belong there.

Kohli wins.

Born Slippy wrote:

Born Slippy wrote:Just looking at the green group. Both Saville and Golding are in futures action. Saville has reached the SF and Golding is into the final in Australia and Qatar respectively.

May not sound much but a title will move Saville up about 50 places into the top 350 and will edge Golding up near the top 400. Starting to get near the level they can get direct entry to some of the weaker challengers.

Saville lost in the SF and Golding lost his final. Both will still make decent upward progress in the rankings. All a learning experience at this stage.

Indeed, still a long way to go for both

btw thanks for the coverage of green group, I'm only really fully covering blue group, so thanks for that

Don't usually post on the tennis board, although I enjoy some of the threads, notably this one, which helps we tennis dabblers to keep in touch with the next big thing.

I had imagined at one stage that this would be Tomic, but what can one say of someone who has just lost pitifully in straight sets (first round) yet again? Who admits that he only put in "85%" during the 6-0 second set and who dropped 8 straight games from 4-4 in the first?

The boy is nearly 20 and appears to have virtually nothing between the ears at all. I don't know what you sages of the game think, but surely the window of opportunity for him to sort his head out is getting ever smaller? About 18 months, perhaps, before everyone loses patience with Bernie the Buffoon for good?

He's got to have a hard off-court think about where he's going and what he wants to achieve in the game. If he doesn't make a conscious decision to maximise his efforts and potential - re-focus, with a set of definite goals - then he's never going to get much further than he is now and he'll end up as another Gulbis. At the moment Tomic lacks dedication to the sport.

captain carrantuohil wrote:Don't usually post on the tennis board, although I enjoy some of the threads, notably this one, which helps we tennis dabblers to keep in touch with the next big thing.

Good to see
Good to have you on here too, you should post more often

captain carrantuohil wrote:
I had imagined at one stage that this would be Tomic, but what can one say of someone who has just lost pitifully in straight sets (first round) yet again? Who admits that he only put in "85%" during the 6-0 second set and who dropped 8 straight games from 4-4 in the first?

The boy is nearly 20 and appears to have virtually nothing between the ears at all. I don't know what you sages of the game think, but surely the window of opportunity for him to sort his head out is getting ever smaller? About 18 months, perhaps, before everyone loses patience with Bernie the Buffoon for good?

He still has time, but he isn't making great progress I admit. Wasn't great against Mayer today at all.

On the subject of young players, can you tennis boffins tell me what shot this is?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S55Pq4RrfI&feature=related

I call that shot the forehand 'tickle'. None of the top 10 bar Federer have hit a better shot than that.

Looks like a very lightly hit forehand, as the racquet hits the ball it turns into a slice motion by bending the wrist down.

I think the offical term is the 'angled inside-out drop shot forehand slice'

or 'inside-out angled forehand slice drop shot'?

http://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/news/articles/2012-10-10/201210101349893614879.html

The Special Juan wrote:http://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/news/articles/2012-10-10/201210101349893614879.html

Thanks for the article, brilliant stuff TSJ.

Whatever the shot is (nice technical name, very catchy) it's something I've never seen before. Poor Bernard, I sense Gasquet v2.

It's possible, Juan. I read in one of the Australian papers that Tomic has pulled out of Stockholm, is unlikely to take up his engagement in Basle and that his season is "effectively over".

Add to this the fact that he won't be defending his semi-final Brisbane points early next year through playing Hopman Cup and then the fact that he has 180 Aus Open points to defend later in the month and it's a strong possibility that he's somewhere like 75 in the world come the start of February. He's still young of course, but this is a tailspin that needs to end swiftly.

He says he's burnt out, only taking a week off between RG and Wimb...but that doesn't quite add up to me.

lydian wrote:He says he's burnt out, only taking a week off between RG and Wimb...but that doesn't quite add up to me.

Well since he played just 5 matches from RG to Wimbledon inclusive (winning one, losing four including a part-set retirement) I can't see how that causes burnout.

I read this about him earlier:

The 19-year-old won just eight points in a miserable second set of his first-round clash against Germany's Florian Mayer for yet another early tournament exit in a disappointing season.

His Shanghai flop comes just weeks after he was branded "disgraceful" by Davis Cup team captain Pat Rafter following his US Open second-round defeat at the hands of Andy Roddick.

American tennis great John McEnroe said Tomic seemed to give up during his 6-3 6-4 6-0 loss to Roddick at the US Open.

And on Tuesday the Australian admitted he was having problems with the mental side of his game as he adjusts to life on the gruelling tennis tour.

Tomic confessed to only giving "about 85 per cent", adding: "Today I gave 100 per cent in the first set. I felt in the second set, my 100 per cent wasn't even close to where it should be ... the mental skill is one of my biggest problems."

Tomic, who has slipped to 43rd in the rankings after hitting a career-high of 27, admitted it had been tough going in 2012 after a breakthrough year in 2011 during which he reached the Wimbledon quarter-finals.

"It's been a long year," he said.

"I played a lot of tournaments. Haven't had time to rest. I think I only rested one week after Roland Garros.

"I think it was the wrong sort of move that I made. I think it's costing me now the last few months. My performance has not been as good.

"It's been a massive road this year. I didn't plan my schedule as I should have and it's cost me a lot of matches that I probably should have won."

Tomic is now in danger of losing his place in the world's top 50. His loss to Mayer, who also crushed him in straight sets in Davis Cup last month, was Tomic's eighth first-up exit in 12 tournaments since the French Open.

He is now certain to fall further down the rankings after failing to defend points from reaching the last 16 in China last year.

Bolded bits stood out for me.

Interesting Independent article discusses what we have been also talking about...questioning why it's hard for youngsters to break into the upper echelons of the game.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/tennis/tomic-troubles-show-why-this-is-now-no-game-for-young-men-8204395.html

lydian wrote:Interesting Independent article discusses what we have been also talking about...questioning why it's hard for youngsters to break into the upper echelons of the game.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/tennis/tomic-troubles-show-why-this-is-now-no-game-for-young-men-8204395.html

This is a real concern. If teenagers can't break through to the top 100 and must face more years on the tour before they begin to earn a reasonable level of income then some of them may simply give up. They won't be earning much prize money while carrying real cash costs and virtually none of their peers is doing better. Some of them may see the economics as being against them.

It's an interesting article lydian and highlights some of the concerns that you have voiced.

On the subject of Tomic - he isn't sounding like a potential top tenner at all.

Have updated the updates (check top comment of this page).
A disappointing week for the youngsters, Tomic especially was terrible.

Goffin finally playing an ATP level tournament!
On serve against Baghdatis in Stokholm 3-4 1st set.

Meanwhile in Vienna it's a very rare entry from someone from my green group, Dominic Thiem has a wildcard.
He plays Lacko R1.

Last year Thiem also got a wildcard, and he beat Austrian legend Muster in his final match in R1.

Goffin loses to Marcos 6-4 6-2

Baggy is a good player, no disgrace there but looked like he slipped after being 3-4 on serve. He's still a relative freshman on tour...needs to physically toughen up and get a decent coach.

Let's be honest folks,

most of these youngesters are pretty dire (relatively speaking).

This is the worst group of youngsters since I can't remember when. They're bloody hopeless. So long as the current top four, and even top 8, retain a semblance of form and fitness, these guys won't top them.

Only Raonic has any potential to gatecrash the party and that's because of his huge serve. The rest of his game is no more than average.

Tomic is rubbish (disguised as laziness), so is Harrison, Dolgopolov is rubbish disguised as eccentricity (he's like the guy at school/uni that wants everyone to think he's a flawed genius, when infact he's not really all that). Dimitrov actually looks like he may be somewhat talented but has completed plateaued over the last couple of seasons.

Goffin only just came on the scene so i'll reserve judgement on him - but he definitely needs to get stronger, fitter, faster or the ironmen of today will chew him up and spit him out.



rotapicname

Empacipator, telling it right as it is!

Interesting perspective on Tomic from Djokovic

http://www.10sballs.com/2012/10/18/novak-djokovic-defends-friend-tomics-actions/

One hopes that Novak is right in his generous appraisal, because that was another rancid performance today by Tomic. It's all about the space between the ears.

captain carrantuohil wrote:One hopes that Novak is right in his generous appraisal, because that was another rancid performance today by Tomic. It's all about the space between the ears.

Yes he was terrible today against Youzhny, losing 6-0 6-2

Goffin beats Isner in 3 sets!!!

Also Dimitrov beats Benneteau in 3rd set TB, but Raonic goes out vs Muller.

He's now in the 1/4s. Told you guys Goffin is one to watch...beat #33 rank Andujar 6-2 6-2 in 1st round and now Isner in 3..that's no mean feat indoors given John's serve.

This 21 year old certainly has the talent. I don't know how far he can go but he's still newish to tour, so not in his prime yet. He's risen from #175 in January to #41 now. He may face his Belgian elder statesman Malisse in the quarters.

I don't like seeing only top spin used throughout rallies, but its high time Tomic got with the programme and starts using it, you not gonna beat the experienced guys with flat hitting all day.

He has the shots JM, but not the mental strength to find the right ones at the right time.
He's already citing burnout at age 19 (now 20)...not a good sign.
Needs a new coach and mindset. Won't see him until 2013 now...maybe the break will do him good.

You don't often see a match with one player winning 4/33 on return, 5/26 on 2nd serve and only 31% of points overall.

Dare I mention he was getting trounced by another week era has-been?

Youzhny is a great hitter- but very inconsistent.
BB I'm not sure Tomic has been part of this (golden?) generation, he's from the next generation (hence we are talking about him on this thread).

Quite, I didn't mention the Golden Ones.

Surely JJ should be in here somewhere, probably Blue group

emancipator wrote:Surely JJ should be in here somewhere, probably Blue group

Yep, he's gonna go in the blue group.

Apologies, when I did this in September I overlooked him, didn't realise he would suddenly rocket up like this lol

I can't believe I completely forgot about this guy from when he played in the davis cup against GB.
He gave Murray a decent game back then and I think he was 18 or so at the time but really haven't heard of him since this years wimby 2bh

Jack Sock has got through to final of Champaign Challenger in Illinois, US.
If he wins he'll be around 125 ranking. At start of year he was #380...not bad progress.

lydian wrote:Jack Sock has got through to final of Champaign Challenger in Illinois, US.
If he wins he'll be around 125 ranking. At start of year he was #380...not bad progress.

Ah he beat Boggy then?