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Old 01-27-2016, 05:19 PM   #3
britrock88
Pro Starter
 
Join Date: Jan 2011
Location: Madison, WI
I'll take an opening crack at your questions...

-How do you decide when a player is ready to move up to the next level of tournaments?

Generally, I peek at the next level up whenever a player wins a title at his current level. Another thing I will occasionally do is peek at the registrations for next week's tournaments, and see if my player's ranking would lead him to be a seeded player at a certain level. A seeded player translates to an expectation of a couple wins and strikes a nice balance in scoring points and retaining form.

-Do you train for skill or serve first?

My rule of thumb is to have the marginal skill cost be at least twice as high as the marginal service cost. That infers that skill is twice as valuable as service--conversely, that service is half as valuable as skill. That's a minimum, I would think.

-How do you best control Form?

This varies based on the stage of a player's career. Until they are playing at a peak level (major/challenger-level singles or doubles), the experience you gain in practice is just as important, in my book. So I will enter players into tournaments until their form approaches 30 (the max without penalty to ability and experience), then keep them out of tournaments until their form drops to just about 15 (the min).

At a top level, Brian's best qualified to answer--I've only had a couple seasons' worth of practice with major-level players (doubles) that were successful enough that they couldn't afford the form to play in every major-level tournament week. In that case, you just look ahead and make sure to maximize your potential to play in GSLs, MSTs, and 500s.

-What do you look for when you hire a player?

Brian's done great work explaining this. My personal biases are for players with low aging factors (to extend their potential career length) and players in lower-tier nations (for a better chance at JTC/WTC opportunities). There's definitely a balance to strike between talent and endurance. Strength and skill are sneakily important. Don't worry about court preferences at all with young players--you can easily reshape those with any thoughtful tourney/practice registration scheme.
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