Kyle Edmund

Beat Benoit Paire in the quarter final of what seems like a strong field for a challenger. Likely to play Rogers-Vasselin in the semis.

Seeing as Ward can't seem to buy a win at the moment (Davis cup aside) and Edmund is making good progress - how long until he is British number 2?

Also, what do you think his ceiling is? Top 20, top 10?

A matter of weeks certainly, if he's any good on dirt. He`s merely 92 pts behind Ward and has 128 more race points so far with 220. And the good news is he's just 20

Amazing how Ward is a different player in the DC, his results elsewhere are pretty mediocre like a yin-yang player. Kyle is beating a few 30-60 ranked players so is probably more deserving than Ward to get in the team.

James does seem to bring his best to DC, but he's also had other good performances in the bigger events – like coming through Roland Garros qualifying last year, and he often seems to play better against higher ranked players. It's in the Challengers he doesn't seem to be able to match this, and that's where he basically is right now, and needs to play himself up and out of them. He's been frustratingly close to the top 100 since late last year (enough to scrape into the Australian open main draw thanks to a couple of withdrawals), but just seems to be sliding away from it now.

Incidentally, when does Aljaz Bedene start to count as British? He has his citizenship now, I think. Great timing for him, not for James – Bedene overtook him in one fell swoop last week after winning the Irving Challenger, which means he would/will be the British no. 2, whereas he'd been ranked below James for months before this.

Kyle's progress looks very steady, so I hope he continues on the upward trend. I think he's happier on the clay than most Brits, which will also help. I would expect him to overtake the other two sooner rather than later, but I do wish James would break that top 100.

I always thought Kyle had the most potential of the younger crop of Brits, but I admit I'd prematurely written off Liam Broady when he seemed to struggle badly once out of juniors. But he's also made great progress in the last year, and is ranked only 40 places below Kyle, at 184. And only one year older, so another with plenty of time.

Whether or not Bedene becomes eligible to play Davis Cup for GB, I can't see Leon Smith putting him in just because he's currently ranked higher than James Ward. James has proved himself as a Davis Cup player – as had Dan Evans before he "disappeared" due to injury – he's back playing Futures now, but it's an awfully long road back now he's not even in the GB top 20.

It's interesting that Kyle's been with the Davis Cup team for most of their recent ties, and Liam joined them for the latest, so they are very much waiting in the wings. I think Kyle should get his chance before long, but for a World Group QF, James's experience would be a lot safer, as long as he's in decent form. A nice dead rubber for Kyle to cut his teeth on would be good, once GB have wrapped up the tie 3-0.

Guest82 wrote:Beat Benoit Paire in the quarter final of what seems like a strong field for a challenger. Likely to play Rogers-Vasselin in the semis.

I have shares in both Kyle Edmund and Benoit Paire in Racket Rally  (anyone else on here doing that?) but I see I have twice as many shares in Kyle as Benoit, so that's good. More points for meeeeee.

(And no, I never saw myself relying on Paire to win anything either,  but he has been in decent form lately.)

Edmund seems to have been progressing nicely and seems to be making good steps in reasonable time. I am hopeful he can be in the top 100 at the end of this season.

Think Ward has earned the loyalty over Bedene for the next few ties at least. Think GB may struggle with France as can't see us getting a singles win outside of Murray and think they have good doubles, but you never know.

Be nice if Ward can step it up, but his ranking may drop soon if his poor form continues - not sure what he's defending but know he's decent on clay...