What Does Tennis Need? Part II
The first instalment of this series discusses some problems with the current format of the season for both ATP and WTA, and a solution was offered; instead of basing the World Number 1 title on the year-round results, tennis authorities should award the
position to the winners of the Barclay’s ATP World Tour Finals and the WTA Championships. This second and final segment offers a way to do it.
The top 12 players of the ATP and the WTA should be selected for these year ending events. The first move should be to get rid of the round-robin format which is currently followed by all the tour championships. Not only is it confusing, it’s hard to follow
as well. The top four players of the WTA and ATP should be given a bye, and the next eight should play against each other until winners are decided. Then, these winners should go into the quarterfinals against the top four players.
The current Number 1 player in the tournament should fight against the first seed, as well as the easiest draw. The four major winners of the tournament should be guaranteed a place in the tournament, without regard for their rankings.
With such a system, sports fans would sit up and take notice of the event. While players are dropping out of tournaments left right and centre now, this would encourage them to play, or participate in a top four event.
These days, the tour championship events are little more than a joke. They seem like exhibition matches – irrelevant and pointless. For example, at the end of this year’s season Wozniacki lost the WTA Championships and still ended up as the year-end World
Number 1. Therefore, it’s easy to see that the ranking system is seriously flawed. For all practical purposes, the scores collected by players are based solely on their tournament performances. These are retained year round, which makes one year haze into
another.
In women’s tennis, particularly, all tournaments played by a pro are not counted, which only makes it impossible to follow the prowess of any player. For example, Kim Clijsters entered the US Open as the defending champion, ranked ahead of both Vera Zvonareva
and Venus Williams. She beat both those players and won the Grand Slam match. However, the next day, both players were above Clijsters on the rankings.
The ranking system can only stay in place if a Super Bowl like event is set up for tennis, because it would mean that the World Number 1 slot would be fixed. The only ranking that truly matters has to retain some consistency in order to keep the system from
being undermined.
Luckily for the Association of Tennis Professionals, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer have monopolized the Majors as well as the top spots in the ranking systems. However, in the women’s division, World Number 1s who have never won anything significant keep
cropping up on the charts. A major factor in this discrepancy is Serena Williams and her lack of participation – although she is without a doubt the best tennis player in the world, she doesn’t play enough minor tournaments to maintain a high score on the
charts.
However, if Wozniacki won the season-ending tennis Super Bowl without a Grand Slam win, it would still be considered sufficient proof of her prowess. The new system would basically be the same as a Major, with the excitement and anticipation of Number 1
title as bait. It would also do away with the sudden lull which falls over the world of tennis after the US Open ends, and it would guarantee that each and every player had a fair shot of both participating in and winning the event.
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