What Does Tennis Need? Part I
As any sports fan will tell you, the key to a brilliant season is that the beginning, the middle and the end of every season must be clear and divided. Herein lays the problem with tennis; it robs the player of a climax, or a build up. Add to that the fact
that there is no proper off-season. Spectators generally prefer a sport which leads up to a title which settles a definite champion. Tennis lacks this entirely.
Instead of going out with a bang, tennis fades out. Instead of a grand finale, there is a quiet retreat, and the year ends with a Number one, who may or may not deserve the ranking. There probably is no other sport in the world in which the rankings do not
provide conclusive results, or where the athletes themselves feel that the top ranking is not really that important (especially where the Women’s Tennis Association players are concerned).
While most tennis fans may not be aware of this, the tennis season is still in progress, because it never really ends. The year may finish with a season-ending tour championship, but the fact remains that a decisive champion is not picked. In women’s tennis,
for example, the Number one ranking went to Caroline Wozniacki at the end of the year. Wozniacki has not yet won a Major, and she has not been able to beat many top players in the tennis world.
Luckily, there is a solution. One simple twist in the world of tennis can make the game much more interesting, and a lot more unpredictable. The tennis authorities should alter the rules of the game to make the World Tour finals and the Women’s Tennis Association
(WTA) championships the deciding factor for the end of year world number one. Whichever player wins the respective events, should be given the title of the season's best player.
What tennis needs, is a Super Bowl – a last hurrah, a World Cup, a World Series – something to finish the season off and begin afresh next year. In tennis, this never happens. The sport has four Super Bowls – the Australian Open in Melbourne, the French
Open at Roland Garros in Paris, Wimbledon at the All England Club and the U.S. Open at Flushing Meadows in New York. These are spread over the year in January, May, June and September. This works out as badly for the sport as it would for the National Football
League (NFL), if their finals were held four times a year. It doesn’t build up any anticipation, and nothing is resolved at the end.
What tennis fans need is a nice, tidy finish to the sport which makes it end with some conclusiveness. If this system is set in place, the year will finish with a bang not just for the fans, but also for the players themselves. This year, for example, many
of the top players in the WTA did not even bother to show up for the year-ending Championships. This is obviously a sign of what a joke the Championships have become for so many of the players. If the players were forced to fight for the top spot in the world,
they would in all probability make the effort to attend the season-ending tournaments. The WTA in particular would benefit from such a system most.
Read on for a solution in the second installment of this feature.
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