Hello everyone! I'm sure many of you have now heard of the whole fiasco that occured in the Tennis Channel Open tennis championships. Round robbins has received a lot of mixed comments since being officially introduced this year on the ATP tour. Sure it had existed for some time. But it was being used in one single event, the Masters Series Championships. That one tournament had the best of the best, and only 8 players. It's obvious you can't go with a single elimination format.
Now that's all and well... But then, to the surprise of many in the tennis world, the ATP announced it would be testing the format this year on tour. There were many critics of the decision including many players... The tennis world is trying to simply the game (through US Open Series, a simpler ranking system, etc). So why would they make a change that would be so confusing as to have players and fans wondering who was playing for what.
But the ultimate humiliation came this weekend in Las Vegas. In a group formed by James Blake and two of the young talents on tour, Juan Del Potro and Evgueni Korolev, the ATP crumbled under it's own fault.
With just one match to play, between James Blake and Juan Del Potro, the ATP announced James would advance with a win, despite the 3 players being at 1-1 in their group. So when James won his match as his opponent retired while down 6-1, 3-1... James and his fans were thrilled... Wait a second... the tournament announced that since it was a retirement, Korolev was actually moving... what? Bring the confusion... wait... it gets worse. The ATP announced that in fact James Blake was moving on, that the rule did not apply in this specific case... We are now a few hours after the match, with Korolev perhaps thinking about leaving town. But wait, no, the ATP then revised its overrule stating that the rule could not be changed in this context and placing Korolev in the quarterfinals.... leaving fans, players and tennis world in tremendous confusion...
What a joke really? Round robbin sure has some positive aspects but overall I have trouble understanding the logic. I was not in favor of the new rankings system but conceded when the simplicty argument was brought up... but how can they possibly think this format will simplify things???
Labels: Evgueni Korolev, james blake, round robbin
# posted by Pierre : 11:29 AM
