[enlightenedth]

I'm watching Danylo Kalenichenko, 26 years old with a career high of 439, and I cannot believe how GOOD he is playing for his ranking. Basically toying with Luca Nardi at times, a talented Italian who showed some good tennis these past few weeks.
Went on to check his results to kinda get an answer as to why he's ranked so low and I found out he is playing a decent amount of matches per year, around 50-60. Yet, it's not enough to even build a ranking to allow him to participate in CH tournaments. And when he did play a few Challengers, his opponents were Mischa Zverev, Safiullin or Duckworth. Pretty difficult, right?
The guy is stuck playing Futures tournaments. And he is not alone, the competition is fierce down there.

On the other hand, you have players like Vitaliy Sachko. This guy was unable to get past QF in tournaments in Kuwait or Egypt at the end of last year. He chosed to gamble, signing up for an ATP 500 tournament, eventually entering the Q draw and then finding himself in the MD playing Thiem. He only needed to win one match, how lucky is that?
He did the same thing this week, gets in the Q draw in Lima CH, has the luck to draw a doubles player there and now he beat Bagnis in the first round. 😂

Of course, if you are really good, you will have little problems making it to the top, but my question is: do you think LUCK plays a major part in being successful in this sport?

 

[Johnny Groove]

I'm watching Danylo Kalenichenko, 26 years old with a career high of 439, and I cannot believe how GOOD he is playing for his ranking. Basically toying with Luca Nardi at times, a talented Italian who showed some good tennis these past few weeks.
Went on to check his results to kinda get an answer as to why he's ranked so low and I found out he is playing a decent amount of matches per year, around 50-60. Yet, it's not enough to even build a ranking to allow him to participate in CH tournaments. And when he did play a few Challengers, his opponents were Mischa Zverev, Safiullin or Duckworth. Pretty difficult, right?
The guy is stuck playing Futures tournaments. And he is not alone, the competition is fierce down there.

On the other hand, you have players like Vitaliy Sachko. This guy was unable to get past QF in tournaments in Kuwait or Egypt at the end of last year. He chosed to gamble, signing up for an ATP 500 tournament, eventually entering the Q draw and then finding himself in the MD playing Thiem. He only needed to win one match, how lucky is that?
He did the same thing this week, gets in the Q draw in Lima CH, has the luck to draw a doubles player there and now he beat Bagnis in the first round. 😂

Of course, if you are really good, you will have little problems making it to the top, but my question is: do you think LUCK plays a major part in being successful in this sport?

Well yes luck plays a part, but you also make your own luck. You have to find "glitches in the matrix" so to speak

CH Q is the place to do this, especially now they opened it back up. If you are top 500 or 600, you are better off trying to do a CH Q if you can get in, than doing a Futures as a seed (maybe). Of course this all depends on finances.

The 2 challengers this week both have multiple byes in the CH Q draws which means anyone could have paid $10 and played. @George Stobbart reminds me of this every time he sees it. If I was in Peru, I could have played that event, even with my "ranking" of UTR #78,574 (just checked).

A lot of it comes down to guts and willingness to take chances. You gotta have guts to get on a plane or drive many hours to a tournament you are not even guaranteed to get into, especially if you have to sacrifice a guaranteed chance in a futures main draw to do it. But many times you can get into the tournament. And then you are already in the money, like 150 dollars QR1 loss, plus you get hospitality for 4 days I believe. So a lot of incentive to take a chance to get into CH Q, though many prefer to play it safe.

Even if you lose, stick around, play doubles for more practice of higher level return of serve, try to vulture an ALT spot

Always hang around and see what's going on

 

[tribalfusion]

I'm watching Danylo Kalenichenko, 26 years old with a career high of 439, and I cannot believe how GOOD he is playing for his ranking. Basically toying with Luca Nardi at times, a talented Italian who showed some good tennis these past few weeks.
Went on to check his results to kinda get an answer as to why he's ranked so low and I found out he is playing a decent amount of matches per year, around 50-60. Yet, it's not enough to even build a ranking to allow him to participate in CH tournaments. And when he did play a few Challengers, his opponents were Mischa Zverev, Safiullin or Duckworth. Pretty difficult, right?
The guy is stuck playing Futures tournaments. And he is not alone, the competition is fierce down there.

On the other hand, you have players like Vitaliy Sachko. This guy was unable to get past QF in tournaments in Kuwait or Egypt at the end of last year. He chosed to gamble, signing up for an ATP 500 tournament, eventually entering the Q draw and then finding himself in the MD playing Thiem. He only needed to win one match, how lucky is that?
He did the same thing this week, gets in the Q draw in Lima CH, has the luck to draw a doubles player there and now he beat Bagnis in the first round. 😂

Of course, if you are really good, you will have little problems making it to the top, but my question is: do you think LUCK plays a major part in being successful in this sport?

Luck plays a big role in terms of being in a country with a federation which is well financed or being from a family with resources or even just a country with tournaments and well developed infrastructure even apart from tennis, especially early on.

There's also the luck or fortune of having good health; no congenital problems of note or random accidents not really related to game style.

There's the luck of having productive, approachable and easily imitable role-models.

There's virtually no human activity where brute luck doesn't play a huge role in these and other ways.

 

[Bakano]

As much as in everything in life.

But luck must be seeked, not waited for scratching your balls in your couch.