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Old 02-25-2016, 02:42 AM   #38
Brian Swartz
Grizzled Veteran
 
Join Date: May 2006
Quote:
Originally Posted by britrock88
maybe Bryan can do that and I can give you a general rundown on approaching doubles...

I can add little to what you've said. You've got a lot more experience than I do in doubles, I haven't had a serious doubles player yet(though Mehul is going to eventually make that transition, but probably not for three or more years). At that time I'll probably be asking you for advice!

One thing I've noticed as a pattern with almost all the players I've seen is this -- I'm not talking to anyone specifically, if you are doing this, you know who you are

STOP OVERPLAYING!. This is the #1 difference between me and 95+% of the managers on Rocking Rackets. Even many of the high-ranking ones. I constantly see challenger-level developing players in the 30s with their form and I want to throw something at them every single time.

'But I want to get my ranking up!'

** No, you don't want to get your ranking up. You want to get your skills up. Stop putting the cart before the horse. Ranking is not an achievement in and of itself so much as it is a reflection of your player's abilities. It will always 'lag behind' your improvement and this is just fine. Don't lose sight of the goal. Prioritize.

'But it's soooo hard to be pat ... '

** You wanna be a lounge musician or a tennis great? STOP OVERPLAYING!

'But I need to ..'

** No, you really don't need to. STOP OVERPLAYING! Really, I mean it. If your form isn't 16.5 or above, you need to be in a practice event next week. Seriously, you do, unless you are building up for the off-season(mid-40s weeks to new year) and are a challenger player or better, or are an elite player peaking for a big event. If you are regularly having your form in the upper 20s, no matter what your level is, YOU AREN'T DOING IT RIGHT. Waste your potential if you insist, but know that's what you are doing. Seriously. Just stop doing it. *ahem* *cough* *endrant*


Quote:
Originally Posted by law90026
what's the general plan once you hit the TOP 100? Continue playing in challengers until the top 32 with some opportunistic majors thrown in? Participating in grand slams: yea or nay?

The approach I've evolved into over the years is a little counter-intuitive, and sort of flies in the face of what I seems like 'should' be effective. The controlling concept is this, which has been mentioned before:

** Play events you will be seeded in.

I think the why is very important here, because it sheds light on the original question. If you are playing events you aren't ranked highly enough to be seeded in, you run the risk of hitting a powerful top-seeded player early in the tournament. Not only will you almost certainly lose badly, but then you have to figure out what to do with the rest of the week. It's not just the ranking points you don't get -- now you have to play extra friendly matches(or training sessions if you have a trainer) which are suboptimal in terms of gaining experience. It's just not worth the risk.

So when should you play majors? I actually think you should do this when a low-level challenger player, but once you reach about 150th or so you should STOP. Again this is counterintuitive, but at a lower ranking you get the qualifying matches even if you go nowhere(likely) in the main draw. If you are, say, 90th, you are going to be a direct acceptance(no qualifying) and then have a 50% chance of playing a seed. If not in the first round, you almost certainly will in the second. And this means a very low probability of getting in many matches. Slams give great xp, but if you only get a single one-sided loss, it's not getting you anything. And again, you've not had a good week training wise which -- if you aren't an elite Top 32 player -- is the ONLY thing that matters IMO.

So back to the question of what the Top 100 player should do. Keep playing challengers is my advice until you get to about 50th. At that point you are still playing mostly challengers but there is a brief period where 250-level events become useful in certain weeks. If there are three 250s in a week as there are a number of times in the year, a top 50 player can usually be seeded and these are good opportunities.

There's another scenario you need to watch for which is really a pretty advanced concept but I just can't shut up when people ask for opinions about this game, so here it is. If there is a Masters or Slam going on and you are a Top 100 player, most of the players who are good enough to be good practice tournament competition are at the bigger event -- which means you can end up with a crappy practice week anyway because you are just beating up on inferior competition, and that doesn't help you much. There are general two kinds of scenarios here, and it basically depends on whether there are challengers the same week.

Usually, there are. One example where that is not the case is the Australian Open. Often you'll want to play it anyway, because it's either take the chance of an early exit, or take a crappy practice week. It's the last of a three-week stretch of no challengers at all near the beginning of the year. On the other hand, there are some good CH2s during the first week of Indian Wells(week 11) and Miami(week 13), where you can pick up some 'cheap' ranking points because a lot of players who probably shouldn't be are playing in the Masters events, losing early, and wasting a lot of their energy for the week. Then you get a number of matches, some points, your form goes up, and you take the next week for a good practice tournament -- you win, they lose .

Then of course when you reach the Top 32 -- play all the Slams. Play IW and Miami too as a minimum, because you'll be seeded there. And so on.

Any intelligent questions, class? :P
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