Which WTA players are the most reliable favourites?

People love betting on the favourite in any sport. It is only natural – the favourite is the most likely selection to win. However, simply backing the favourites blindly is not necessary a profitable strategy – in fact, it will rarely be a profitable strategy.

The idea of favourite bias has been much discussed. Favouritism bias is where gamblers tend to overvalue outsiders and undervalue favourites. In other words, they value outsiders more than expected, given how often they actually win, and they value the favourites less than expected, given how often they actually win. This might suggest that there could be some worth in looking to back favourites.

In tennis, different players react in different ways to being the favourite. As the favourite, we should expect the player to win, usually they will be the better player or will prefer the surface – hence the favouritism. However, we find that there are a number of players that struggle under the tag of favourite. Similarly, other players enjoy being the fancied player and are very efficient at getting the job done when they should.

Silvia Soler-Espinosa proved a surprising effective favourite for punters

Another aspect to take into consideration is that certain players are very popular with the gambling public. If a certain player is popular, we often find that the odds on them winning are shorter than they should be. People drive the price down on the exchanges simply because they like that player, misrepresenting their true price. We shall look at several examples of this later on.

For those that know a bit about gambling, this section can be skipped. However, as a brief explanation, in each match, odds are available on both players, represented as a decimal. This decimal can be converted into a percentage that represents the implied chance of each player winning the match. For example, in the Australian Open final between Victoria Azarenka and Li Na, the odds on Azarenka were 1.71 and the odds on Li were 2.313. Taking the reciprocal of these, we get the implied percentages – Azarenka has a 58.5% chance of winning the match, while Li has a 43.2% chance of winning. The immediate thing to note is that the two percentages do not add up to 100%, rather to 101.7%. The additional percentage is the overround that the bookmakers add on top to make their profits. Placing a £10 bet on Azarenka at 1.71 would return £17.10, meaning profits of £7.10. Similarly, the same £10 on Li Na would return £23.13, a profit of £13.13.

Looking at the returns on stakes that each player would return over a period of time gives us an idea of how they perform as a favourite, or at least, whether they are overrated or underrated as a favourite by the bookmakers. The odds for each match were taken as the closing Pinnacle odds.

We find that over the past 12 months, the most profitable favourite in the WTA top 100 is the Spaniard, Silvia Soler-Espinosa. If you had been betting on her blindly as the favourite in every match over the past year, you would have seen a return of 40.8% on your stakes. To put this in context, she played 21 matches as a favourite during this period. If you had placed £10 on her in all of those matches, you would have staked a total of £210. You would have seen a profit of £85.68 on those bets. Certainly not a bad return.

She is followed by the world number 29, Elena Vesnina. The Russian would have returned a very impressive 29.0% on total stakes. Having started 26 matches as favourite during this period, £10 on every match would have seen a total stake of £260 and profits of £75.40.

The table below shows the top 10 most profitable players in the top 100 by percentage returns on stake:

Player	World Ranking	Percentage Return	Total Matches as Favourite	Total Profit on £10 stakes
Silvia Soler-Espinosa	64	40.8%	21	£85.68
Elena Vesnina	29	29.0%	26	£75.40
Venus Williams	22	27.4%	31	£84.94
Kirsten Flipkens	23	26.6%	38	£101.08
Ayumi Morita	43	22.5%	29	£65.25
Kaia Kanepi	37	21.0%	19	£39.90
Aleksandra Wozniak	66	19.5%	20	£39.00
Maria-Teresa Torro-Flor	84	19.4%	42	£81.48
Alize Cornet	33	14.5%	35	£50.75
Mallory Burdette	89	14.3%	32	£45.76

Between them, these ten players played 293 matches as the favourite in the past 12 months. Had you placed £10 on every single one of those matches, you would have staked £2,930. However, you would have seen profits of £669.24. In others words, you would have received a 22.8% return on your initial investment. Far better than you would get in the bank.

As an aside, there is also an interesting trend at the top of the rankings. The top 3 players often go off as very short favourites in the majority of their matches. Many people are very wary of backing short priced favourites, however their figures would suggest otherwise. Serena Williams would have returned 7.3% as favourite over the past twelve months, while Maria Sharapova and Victoria Azarenka would have returned 11.6% and 8.3% respectively.

However, while some players return solid profits as a favourite, there are plenty of players that it is worth avoiding. Whether they struggle under the burden of being the favourite, whether they regularly tank matches, or whether they are simply overrated by the bookmakers and gambling public, they tend to lose punters money as favourites.

The table below shows the players to avoid:

Player	World Ranking	Percentage Return	Total Matches as Favourite	Total Loss on £10 stakes
Daniela Hantuchova	75	-28.6%	28	-£80.08
Petra Martic	91	-27.8%	12	-£33.36
Sabine Lisicki	47	-26.4%	26	-£68.64
Coco Vandeweghe	94	-23.4%	21	-£49.14
Lucie Hradecka	58	-22.2%	19	-£42.18
Tamira Paszek	31	-20.5%	16	-£32.80
Andrea Hlavackova	76	-18.4%	26	-£47.84
Jie Zheng	49	-18.3%	22	-£40.26
Yaroslava Shvedova	38	-17.1%	26	-£44.46
Misaki Doi	88	-15.4%	29	-£44.66

Between them, these players played a total of 225 matches as the favourite over the past twelve months. If you had put £10 on each of these matches, you would have staked a total of £2,250. You would have lost £483.42, which works out at 21.5% of your total stakes.

Other notable players that crop up fairly low down the list are the likes of Mona Barthel (-15.1%), Yanina Wickmayer (-14.1%), Melanie Oudin (-10.4%), Julia Goerges (-9.0%) and Laura Robson (-6.7%).

Coming back to our earlier mention of popular players, we can see an interesting trend. The likes of Julia Goerges, Mona Barthel, Daniela Hantuchova, Sabine Lisicki and Laura Robson are all players that are popular with the punters. It is not uncommon to see these players shortening in the betting ahead of their matches as gamblers start to stake their money on the events.

Julia Goerges always proves popular with punters, but it is
unwise to side with her as a favourite

We also see two of the American hopefuls, Melanie Oudin and Coco Vandeweghe, cropping up on this list. Both these players have been much hyped over the past few years as the next big things in American tennis. It would appear that this hype has caused punters to overrate their actual abilities. As favourites at the given odds, both these players would have lost you a reasonable amount of money.

A future article will look more closely at how these players perform as an outsider, which should enable us to draw a few tentative conclusions. It could be that certain players struggle as the favourite, but thrive as the outsider. From this, we might be able to conclude that they struggle with the pressure of being the favourite, while they enjoy the freedom that comes with the lack of expectation as an outsider.

Conversely, we may discover that the same players show strong negative returns as an outsider as well. If this turns out to be the case, we might be able to conclude that their ability is misrepresented amongst bookmakers and gamblers. They are perceived to be better players than their true abilities suggest, in which case, their odds will be too short at all levels, whether the favourite or the outsider.

"20 to Watch" Quarterly Review - Part 3

Daria Gavrilova

Initial World Ranking: 208
Current World Ranking: 143 (↑65)
2013 Record: 8-7
2013 Titles: 0

The year started slowly for Gavrilova with qualifying defeats in Brisbane and Hobart to Vania King and Mariana Duque-Marino respectively. However, her season kicked into life when she battled her way through the qualifying draw to reach the Australian Open main draw. Wins over Stefanie Vogt, Genie Bouchard and Yi-Miao Zhou saw her into her first Grand Slam event and she continued her good form with a first round victory over Lauren Davis. Sadly, the in-form Lesia Tsurenko was too good in the second round, but it was a promising run.

A lucky loser spot gave her the chance to play in Doha and she made the most of it, beating Anabel Medina Garrigues in three sets to set up a marquee encounter with Serena Williams. While she only won three games, it was certainly a valuable learning experience against such a top quality opponent. While she may have had some luck in Doha, it ran out a week later in Dubai as she came up against Svetlana Kuznetsova in qualifying. The former Grand Slam champion is making her way back from injury and is certainly far better than her ranking suggests. A 6-2, 6-2 defeat was not unexpected.

She has managed to break the top 150 already this season, and will be hopeful of pushing on as the year progresses. She had her best results last year on clay, so she will be hopeful of a few good wins and the chance to qualify for the French Open main draw.

RATING: 4/5

Elina Svitolina

Initial World Ranking: 114
Current World Ranking: 90 (↑24)
2013 Record: 11-6
2013 Titles: 1 ($75k Eilat)

A second round defeat to Klara Zakopalova in Shenzhen and a first round defeat at the Australian Open to Angelique Kerber were the outcomes of the two early season tournaments that Svitolina played. While she might have hoped to continue her good form from late-2012, there is certainly no shame in losing to two top-30 ranked players.

Stepping down a level, she won the title at the $75k event in Eilat, dropping just one set. Wins over Johanna Konta, Ilona Kremen and Marta Sirotkina were all expected, but the title would give her confidence to take into the upcoming tournaments.

After a heart-breaking 8-6 loss in the third set against Lourdes Dominguez Lino in the Fed Cup, she bounced back well on the clay in the Cali Challenger event. Wins over Sevastova, Cohen and Duque-Marino saw her reach the semi-final, before bowing out to local player, Catalina Castano.

Following a first round defeat in Bogota to Alize Cornet, she returned to the hard courts in Indian Wells, where victories over Genie Bouchard and Ajla Tomljanovic saw her qualify for the main draw, although she will have been disappointed to have been double-bagelled by the tricky Monica Niculescu. A qualifying defeat to Melinda Czink in Miami put pay to her hopes of qualifying for back to back WTA main draws though.

She won an ITF title on clay last year and her run to the Cali semi-final suggests that she enjoys playing on the surface, so it would be no surprise to see her pick up a few more wins over the next few months. Her ranking is good enough to secure a main draw place in the French Open, so she will be looking for a few WTA main draws before then to really test herself against the top players.

RATING: 3/5

Sachia Vickery

Initial World Ranking: 381
Current World Ranking: 302 (↑79)
2013 Record: 12-6
2013 Titles: 0

The year started in disappointing fashion with a first round defeat at the $10k event in Innisbrook against Lauren Embree, but a month later, she returned and qualified for the $100k event in Midland with good wins over Muresan, Ospina and, particularly, Victoria Duval. She backed this up with a first round win against Taylor Townsend before losing in two close sets to the talented Monica Puig. A quarter-final followed in the $25k event in Surprise.

Defeat in qualifying for Indian Wells was no surprise, although she will have been pleased to have taken Stefanie Voegele to three sets, especially given the Swiss player’s recent form. Returning to Innisbrook for a $25k event, she came through qualifying with ease and picked up three excellent victories over Caroline Garcia, Madison Brengle and Mariana Duque-Marino before succumbing to Patricia Mayr-Achleitner. Her most recent result was a tough three set defeat to Jovana Jaksic in qualifying for Monterrey.

She will have been pleased with her runs in Midland, Surprise and Innisbrook and it would seem that a $10k or $25k title could certainly be within her reach this year. She still has an outside chance of creeping into a French Open qualifying spot with some good results over the coming month, and her run on the clay in Innisbrook will have given her confidence to push on.

RATING: 3/5

Samantha Crawford

Initial World Ranking: 273
Current World Ranking: 241 (↑32)
2013 Record: 6-5
2013 Titles: 0

Her season did not start until February in Midland, where a win over Samantha Murray was followed by a defeat to the talented Mallory Burdette. A second round defeat followed in Surprise to Irena Pavlovic and defeat in qualifying for Indian Wells to Monica Puig was expected. She struggled again to find form in Innisbrook with a disappointing result against Allie Will.

She finally found some form in Monterrey. Three wins in qualifying against Nicole Rottmann, Julia Glushko and Alexandra Stevenson doubled her win tally for the season, before a respectable performance against Angelique Kerber in the first round saw her lose 6-3, 6-3.

It has been a tough first season on the senior circuit for the junior US Open champion, but she will be hoping her run to the main draw in Monterrey can spark her season into life. Clay has never really been her strong point, so she would be wise to stick with some of the hard court tournaments on the ITF circuit and look to boost her ranking ready for the return to the hard courts later in the season.

RATING: 2/5

Francoise Abanda

Initial World Ranking: 611
Current World Ranking: 604 (↑7)
2013 Record: 0-1
2013 Titles: 0

There is not much to say about Francoise Abanda, having played just one match thus far in 2013 – a 6-1, 6-1 defeat to Beatriz Garcia-Vidagany on the clay in Innisbrook. At her age, she is limited in the number of tournaments that she can play, so it would seem likely she is waiting for the ITF events in Canada later in the year.

Her next confirmed tournament is the junior French Open, although she may well play the odd junior tournament on clay ahead of that as a warm-up.

RATING: N/A

How Difficult are Back-to-Back Titles in Tennis?

One of the often mentioned assumptions in tennis is that players that win a title one week often struggle to back it up the following week. Whether through fatigue from playing an entire week of tennis, the hassle of flying from one tournament to the next with little turnaround time or simply celebrating the title too much, there are a multitude of reasons given for this.

However, it begs the question of whether this assumption is really true. The converse argument might follow along the lines that winning breeds confidence. Winning a tournament involves winning at least four matches, which undoubtedly boosts the confidence of a player, suggesting they might play better the following week. Could this be the case instead of the negative impact of a title?

Victoria Azarenka won the Australian Open title, but how good is
she at winning back-to-back titles?

There are plenty of other factors that could come into play. The location of the two tournaments no doubt plays a role. For example, if you win a tournament in Asia, then play the following week in Europe, the amount of travelling and the effect of changing time zones would certainly have an impact on the ability of the player in the second week. However, if you win the tournament in Eastbourne, there is little travelling required to play at Wimbledon the following week. In this situation, there may be a positive impact.

Similarly, winning a title on clay one week might negatively affect your ability to win a tournament on a hard court the following week. The differences between the courts and the lack of practice time on the second surface surely must have an impact? Alternatively, it could be that the top ranked players are used to winning, while the lower ranked players celebrate winning a tournament more and experience a hangover the following week?

To investigate this question, I have looked at every tournament since the beginning of 2011 on the WTA tour. This works out at a total of 117 tournaments. For this, I simply want to look at players attempting to win a title the following week. Therefore, this cuts the sample down to 59. This might be a little small and I may look to increase this in the future, but for now, we shall use these 59.

One thing that we shall look at is whether players overachieved or underachieved in the week following their titles. As a guide to this, I shall use the betting odds for the matches to determine which player was the favourite for each match. This is a solid basic measure, although it could certainly be influenced by the title the previous week, meaning that close matches might see different favouritism than they would have the previous week. However, this is only a minor issue.

The first thing to note is that there are just two players that have won titles in consecutive weeks – Victoria Azarenka and Agnieszka Radwanska. Victoria Azarenka has actually achieved this no fewer than three times, winning Sydney-Australian Open 2012, Beijing-Linz 2012 and Miami-Marbella 2011, while Agnieszka Radwanska has achieved it twice, winning Auckland-Sydney 2013 and Tokyo-Beijing 2011. Notably, the Miami-Marbella double that Azarenka won in 2011 is the only time that a player has won back-to-back titles in consecutive weeks on different surfaces – a feat that Serena Williams is looking to achieve this week in Charleston.

As two of the leading players, you would expect Azarenka and Radwanska to have been favourites for the second titles. Azarenka was the favourite for every match that she played in the three tournaments that she won in the second week. Agnieszka Radwanska was the favourite for every match in Beijing 2011, but won in the semi-final of Sydney 2013 as an outsider against Li Na.

Out of the 59 title winners that have played the following week, it is interesting to note that just twelve of them have won a match the following week as an outsider. The biggest win for a champion as an outsider was for Marion Bartoli. Having lifted the title in Eastbourne in 2011, she took that form into Wimbledon, reaching the quarter-final, most notably beating Serena Williams in the 4^th round, priced at 3.92 by the bookmakers. Interestingly, the second biggest priced upset winner was Tamira Paszek, also at Wimbledon following a win at Eastbourne, beating Caroline Wozniacki in the first round in 2012, priced at 3.30.

Tamira Paszek backed up her Eastbourne title with an excellent win
over Caroline Wozniacki at Wimbledon

This might back up our initial idea that following a title win with a tournament in the same country with minimal travel might maximise the boost.  Other overachievers following a title include Roberta Vinci in the US Open, following victory in Dallas, Gisela Dulko in Monterrey following victory in Acapulco, and Roberta Vinci again in Madrid following victory in Barcelona. All tournaments in the same country.

Looking at the other side of the coin, we find that 32 of our title winners lose the following week as a favourite. As we have mentioned, they may get a boost in the odds from their first title, although this is only really applicable to the matches where there is no clear favourite. Of these 32, we find that no fewer than 10 of these have lost at odds of 1.25 or shorter in the betting.

The shortest price loser was Serena Williams in the Australian Open against Sloane Stephens. However, this result is slightly anomalous due to the ankle injury that Serena picked up early in the tournament. While this could have been a result of having played the previous week, it is more likely to just have been a freak incident. However, it is worth noting that Serena has attempted to win back-to-back titles three times during this period without success. As well as the defeat to Sloane Stephens, she has withdrawn from the tournament on two further occasions.

Interestingly, we find Petra Kvitova is responsible for three of these ten short-priced losers. She lost to Marion Bartoli at the 2012 US Open as a 1.22 favourite, having won New Haven the previous week. She also lost to Ayumi Morita in Dubai in 2011, having won Paris the previous week, and finally lost to Magdalena Rybarikova in the final of an ITF tournament in Prague in 2011 having lifted the title in Madrid. Indeed, Kvitova has attempted to win back-to-back titles four times in our sample and has lost as a favourite on all four occasions.

Looking more closely, we find that of the 32 in our sample, seven players have won the title, and then lost in their first match the following week. The aforementioned match between Kvitova and Morita in Dubai is one of these. She joins Jarmila Groth (Hobart-Australian Open), Anabel Medina Garrigues (Estoril-Madrid), Ksenia Pervak (Tashkent-Guangzhou) and Daniela Hantuchova (Pattaya City-Dubai) to have achieved this unwanted accolade in 2011. Interestingly, there were no players that did this in 2012, but two in 2013 so far. Sara Errani won the title in Acapulco before losing in the first round at Indian Wells, while Daniela Hantuchova finds herself on the list for a second time after her first round defeat in Doha following her triumph in Pattaya City.

There are a couple of things to note from these examples. Twice we see Daniela Hantuchova losing after winning in Pattaya City. This is a tournament noted for the problems caused by the weather. Often players have to play multiple matches in a short period to fit all the matches in. To play three matches in two days, then fly from Thailand to the Middle East and look to back it up is very difficult.

We also see Errani struggling to adapt from the clay of Acapulco to the hard courts of Indian Wells, demonstrating the difficulty of transitioning from one surface to another in such a short period. Indeed, she is one of only three players that have attempted to win back-to-back titles on different surfaces alongside Victoria Azarenka and Gisela Dulko.

Interestingly, there is little evidence to suggest that smaller players underachieve the following week any more than the higher ranked players do. While there are examples of lower ranked players crashing out early the following week as strong favourites – Ksenia Pervak losing to Yung-Jan Chan in Guangzhou and Monica Niculescu losing to Kirsten Flipkens in Indian Wells – there are just as many examples of top players struggling.

Kvitova often struggles in the week after
winning a title

Similarly, there are plenty of examples of lower ranked players taking confidence from their title victories and scoring upsets the following week. Polona Hercog beat Flavia Pennetta in Palermo and reached the final, having won the previous week in Bastad. As mentioned earlier, Tamira Paszek reached the quarter-finals of Wimbledon, beating Caroline Wozniacki, having won in Eastbourne the previous week.

Hopefully, we have discovered a few facts that can help to shed some light on the effect of winning a title and attempting to play the following week. Even for top players, winning back-to-back titles is incredibly difficult. Serena Williams has failed on three occasions, Petra Kvitova on four occasions and Caroline Wozniacki on five occasions. Agnieszka Radwanska has achieved it twice, but has failed on no fewer than four other occasions. Indeed, the only player seemingly able to do this on a consistent basis is Victoria Azarenka, who has done it three times out of four.

While some players do seem to take confidence from winning a title, there is not a great deal of upset victories the following week. Instead, it is far more often that the titlist loses as a favourite, often as a strong favourite, in the betting. Changing surfaces, long travelling and interrupted tournaments all exacerbate this trend.

It would appear that there is certainly truth in the initial assumption. Whilst not every player struggles the following week, it is far more likely that they will crash out of the tournament, often as a favourite, rather than overachieving and winning back-to-back titles.

"20 to Watch" Quarterly Review - Part 2

In Part 1, we looked at how the first five of our "20 to Watch" performed this year so far. Here, we move onto the next five players on our list.

Annika Beck

Initial World Ranking: 78
Current World Ranking: 74 (↑4)
2013 Record: 4-7
2013 Titles: 0

The young German has struggled to replicate her 2012 form this year so far. It started reasonable well with a quarter-final appearance in Shenzhen after wins over Garbine Muguruza and Su-Wei Hsieh, but defeat to Shuai Peng ended her tournament prematurely. However, that was as good as her year would get.

She struggled to an error-strewn victory over the out-of-form Yaroslava Shvedova in the first round of the Australian Open, but won just three games against Ayumi Morita in the second round. Defeats against Varatchaya Wongteanchai and Marina Erakovic in Pattaya and Memphis followed, before she dropped a set against Brazilian wildcard, Maria-Fernanda Alves in Florianopolis. A straight sets defeat in the second round continued her poor form.

Moving back to the USA, she might have hoped for an improvement in her form, but first round defeats in both Indian Wells and Miami against Kiki Bertens and Urszula Radwanska were both disappointing.

She does not have the biggest serve, which means that the rest of her game needs to be solid. However, so far in 2013, this has not been the case. Errors off both wings have hampered her and she has regularly been winning under 40% of points on her own serve. She needs to find some consistency if she is to live up to the potential that she showed in the later part of 2012

RATING: 1/5

Katerina Siniakova

Initial World Ranking: 1077
Current World Ranking: 423 (↑654)
2013 Record: 11-3
2013 Titles: 1 ($10k Frauenfeld)

It has been a wonderful start to the year for the 16-year old Czech. After a quarter-final appearance in the junior tournament at Traralgon, she reached the final of the Australian Open juniors as the second seed, dropping just a single set. She was unable to win in the final against Ana Konjuh, but it was an impressive run.

A first round defeat in Kreuzlingen against Lara Michel was a disappointing first match at senior level for the season, but she bounced well by winning the title in the $10k event in Frauenfeld as a qualifier. The next stop was the Miami Masters, where she had received a wildcard into qualifying. Two very impressive wins over Mandy Minella and Alexa Glatch saw her through to her first ever WTA main draw and she took Garbine Muguruza to three sets in the first round in a hugely impressive performance.

Making the step up to a $50k event in Osprey, she registered more impressive results with victories over Alexandra Cadantu, Irina Falconi and Marta Sirotkina before losing to Mariana Duque Marino, showing she can play on clay as well as the hard courts.

She plays with a lot of power and looks to have a very bright future. It would be good to see her playing some more $25k and $50k events with the odd wildcard into qualifying for WTA events. With the type of results that she has registered over the past month, her ranking will shoot up over the coming year.

RATING: 5/5

Alison van Uytvanck

Initial World Ranking: 232
Current World Ranking: 183 (↑49)
2013 Record: 14-5
2013 Titles: 1 ($25k Andrezieux-Boutheon)

2013 has been consigned to the ITF tour thus far for van Uytvanck, although she has enjoyed relative success. The year started with a semi-final appearance in Glasgow, losing in three sets to the in-form Tara Moore, before she won the title the following week at the $25k event in Andrezieux-Boutheon with victories over Ekaterina Bychkova, Yuliya Beygelzimer and Ana Vrljic without dropping a set.

A first round defeat in Eilat and defeat in the Fed Cup against Stefanie Voegele were disappointing results, but a final appearance in Sunderland was a return to form, but a second loss of the year to Anna-Lena Friedsam would have been frustrating.

Her most recent result was a first round defeat to Sandra Zahlavova in Croissy-Beaubourg in straight sets in a match that should have been a decent test for her.

With her ranking up to inside the top 200, she should get entry into qualification for the French Open and it would be nice to see her look to try to make the step up into qualifying for some of the WTA events, rather than stick with the $10k and $25k events on the ITF tour.

RANKING: 3/5

Taylor Townsend

Initial World Ranking: 502
Current World Ranking: 349 (↑153)
2013 Record: 2-4
2013 Titles: 0

The season did not begin for Townsend until February, having spent time off the circuit working on her game. A tame defeat to Sachia Vickery in Midland was a disappointing start, but things would improve. A victory over Valeria Savinykh in qualifying for Memphis was good, although she was unable to get past Claire Feuerstein and make the main draw.

She did receive a wildcard into the main draw at Indian Wells and certainly made the most of it. Having lost the first set against Lucie Hradecka, she bounced back to record the biggest win of her career, beating the world number 57 in three sets. Although she lost comfortably in the next round against Ivanovic, it was a successful week.

A transition to clay in Innisbrook was more challenging, losing to Maria Irigoyen, winning just four games, but there have certainly been signs that she has a future in the game.

Her main problem remains her movement. After the controversy last year concerning her weight, she has improved, but still struggles to move quickly around the court. Her shot-making looks promising, but she finds it difficult to get into the right positions to make her shots and this is an area where work is still needed.

RANKING: 3/5

Irina Khromacheva

Initial World Ranking: 190
Current World Ranking: 221 (↓31)
2013 Record: 4-5
2013 Titles: 0

It has been a difficult start to 2013 for Khromacheva, albeit on her less favoured surface. Defeat in the first round of qualifying for the Australian Open to Tereza Mrdeza was followed by a second round in Rancho Mirage and a quarter-final in Rancho Santa Fe.

She reached the second round again in Surprise before losing to Alize Lim, then faced a tough qualifying match against Yulia Putintseva in Miami. After winning the first set on a tiebreak, she lost the second set before retiring with an ankle injury.

She has looked to have struggled with her fitness a bit this year, falling away in deciding sets or retiring a number of times. However, her best results in the past have come on the clay, so the real test of her progress will likely come over the next few months. A tune-up on the ITF circuit might be a smart move before looking to qualify for a WTA tournament or two. The real challenge will be to improve her ranking by the twenty places or so that she needs to enter qualifying for the French Open.

RANKING: 2/5

NextGen Series Success Threatened by UEFA Challenge

On the shores of Lake Como, in the shadows of the Alps, Aston Villa and Chelsea met in a match that would crown one of the two the best youth team in Europe. After 90 minutes of high-quality football, it was Aston Villa that came out victorious to become the champions of the second edition of the NextGen Series.

Aston Villa won the second edition of the NextGen Series, beating
Chelsea 2-0 in the final in Como

The brainchild of Mark Warburton, the NextGen Series is a competition for under-19s teams from around the continent to provide the opportunity for the young players to match themselves against other elite European footballers in a competitive environment. The first edition in 2011/12 saw sixteen teams compete in a group stage and knockout phase. The final matched Inter Milan, who had beaten Sporting Lisbon and Marseille to reach the last stage, against Ajax, fresh off a 3-0 victory over Barcelona and a 6-0 demolition of Liverpool. In the end, Inter won the match on penalties.

Of the twenty-two players that started in last year’s final, no fewer than fourteen have gone on to make their full debuts for either Inter Milan or Ajax – a sign that the teams that these sides are sending out in the NextGen Series are packed full of future stars. Indeed, Ajax’s Viktor Fischer, the star of last year’s tournament, has gone on to make his international debut for Denmark and is seen as one of the brightest talents in European football.

It is a promising sign for English football that three of the four semi-finalists were Chelsea, Arsenal and Aston Villa. Whilst having an advantage in terms of numbers – six of the twenty-four teams were English this season – they have still had to come past some talented teams to reach that stage. Chelsea eliminated Barcelona and Juventus to reach the semis, Arsenal beat Inter Milan and CSKA Moscow, while Aston Villa beat Ajax and Olympiacos.

It was also refreshing to see so many British players on the pitch for the final. Long maligned for simply buying the best youth players for their academy, Chelsea fielded five English players and two Scottish players in their starting eleven, while Aston Villa had six English players and five Irishmen. In other words, 18 of the 22 players were from the British Isles, while two of the other Chelsea players would also be eligible to play for England.

Viktor Fischer was the star of last season's competition and has since
made his international debut for Denmark

However, one issue that a number of the tournament’s critics level at it is that it has no form of qualification. Rather the tournament is simply an invitation-only competition that means that there is no guarantee that the best youth teams in Europe are actually involved. While this may be a valid point, it is difficult to point out many teams that should be involved that are not.

Manchester United and Real Madrid are two big names that are missing, but they were invited and rejected the opportunity to take part. Among other obvious missing names are the likes of Bayern Munich, Lyon, Feyernoord, AC Milan and Porto. Given the recent output of talent, there maybe is also an argument for more German representation beyond just Dortmund and Wolfsburg.

Nevertheless, there are few teams not involved that could make a realistic claim to be better than the teams currently involved. Despite its success, the competition faces an uncertain future.

In December, Michel Platini and UEFA announced that it would be launching its own version of an U19 Champions League. Sounds reasonable so far, but it has one major flaw – it will simply involve the same teams as the senior Champions League.

To me, that seems a fairly poor way of running the competition. The quality of a club’s senior team often has little correlation with the quality of its youth academy graduates. Looking at next season’s UEFA version of the U19 Champions League, it will be missing Aston Villa, the current NextGen Series champions, and Sporting Lisbon, who finished in third place in this season’s competition. It will also potentially be missing either Arsenal or Tottenham, who reached the semi-final and quarter-finals respectively.  It could be missing either or both of Ajax and PSV, both of whom reached the knockout stages this season. Indeed, there is a possibility that no fewer than six of the last sixteen of this season’s NextGen Series would be excluded, purely based on the quality of their senior team. No reflection on the performance of their youth academy teams.

The objection is not at all to UEFA getting involved. After all, the hope of the NextGen Series was to grow, find a primary sponsor and television deal and get the proper footballing authorities involved. The association with UEFA would certainly give a tournament the prestige and backing that it needs.

Platini and UEFA are set to launch a competitor to NextGen next season

Rather it comes down to the matter of selection. One has to question the involvement of the likes of Anzhi in a youth tournament. They have built their team on the back of offering huge wages and transfer fees to established players. Their youth team is 11^th in the current Russian U21 league.

Instead, it would seem that the solution would be to find a similar form of qualification as that for the senior version. Rather than simply mirroring the teams that are involved in the two tournaments, why not use the respective youth leagues around Europe to establish a qualification criteria. The top teams in the English Premier Academy League, the Italian Campionato Nazionale Primavera, the French U19 Championnat National and the other various academy competitions around Europe could qualify for the new UEFA U19 Champions League¹.

However, the chances of this happening are remote. Arsenal have committed themselves to the NextGen Series for next season, but have admitted that they will struggle to compete in both that and the UEFA version if they qualify. UEFA are likely to use their power to force clubs to prioritise their version, meaning the NextGen Series will suffer.

It will simply result in the bigger clubs establishing themselves as the leading clubs for academy players that want to play in the biggest youth matches. The best youth players will gravitate to these clubs at the expense of the likes of Aston Villa and Sporting Lisbon. With the best youth players, the best players will graduate into the top teams, without the transfer fees being paid to the smaller clubs – money that is the lifeblood of many clubs.

As with so many of the changes, it will only help to entrench the existing top clubs in their position at the expense of the smaller teams. The idea of providing a platform for young players to challenge themselves at a continental level is an excellent one. The current format of the NextGen Series has worked well over the first two editions. However, the introduction of UEFA into the mix with their grand, but damaging, plan threatens to ruin all the good work that Mark Warburton and NextGen has achieved thus far.

¹ Spain would be an issue given their youth teams play in the full league structure, but a fair qualification criteria could surely be devised