Just thought this might be of interest to some of you out there...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/6971806.stm

Players risk ban for withdrawals

Top tennis players face suspension if they refuse to turn up for top tournaments, BBC Sport understands.
Event organisers have been hit by a series of high-profile men's and women's withdrawals in recent years.

But at present they can expect nothing more than a hefty fine if they pull out of contracted tournaments.

BBC 5live tennis correspondent Jonathon Overend said: "Talk of suspensions have been mooted for while but the new plan is surprisingly aggressive."

The aim by tour chiefs is to guarantee the top tournaments have a full complement of top-10 stars, without the current trend of late withdrawals, often for the player's own convenience, Overend explained.

He added: "At the moment players are contracted to play the Masters Series events and if they pull out the worse they can expect is a fine, which means nothing to a millionaire.

"If a player misses a tournament other than for a genuine injury he can expect to be banned from his most successful event the following season.

"In other words he'll lose a stack of ranking points without a chance of defending them, hitting him where it hurts."


what do people think of this?

In a way, i can see why they might want to implement this, it probably acts as a deterrent for players to pull out and adds incentive for them to play.

However it could damage the game from a spectactator point of view. lets face it, the top players wont be able to play that many tournaments a year and will inevitably miss a couple of the big events through injury or other reasons. Should the top players be taken out of the game due to the ban, what players will be left? We'll be left with a sub-par WTA tour because a lot of the players have been suspended.

It can work both ways :shrug:

It's tricky isn't it!

I tell you what though, if players on the ATP and WTA HAVE to play unless they have a very good reason, they will. We do need more events with "full houses", especially on the WTA. Training schedules may change with more tournaments played, maybe games will even taiilor their games and add some more guile who knows? :rolleyes:

Does anyone notice a sluight problem with this????


If players get suspended for missing tournaments and they go through with forcing them to miss their most successful tournament then other tournaments will suffer....


Let's say Federer and Nadal pulled out of the Paris TMS, and they then banned them from their most successful tournament, then no Fed at wimby and no Nadal at RG which I can hardly think is the best thing for spectators??

I'm not sure whether the grand slams are implicated in this...

Okay but even then it would force Fed to miss, say another of the masters because he's pulled out of this one in which case you get to see Federer at 0/2 masters rather than 1/2.....

Exactly, i mean i think some parts of the schedule are ridiculous, particular towards the end of the year, and i think its one huge ask for every player to play every tournament. These tournament directors must know that not all the players will be missing, why not let the players vary their schedule a bit? :shrug:

As you say SG, can you imagine a Wimby without Fed, nadal, the William sisters, Henin et? It would literally destroy the appeal of tennis :rolleyes:

yes but if the deterrent is there then surely 2/2 is the most likely outcome :rolleyes:

Well it's fine as long as this applies only to a limited amount of tournaments so that the very best players (who can be expected to reach the later rounds regularly) are not bullied into harming themselves.

On the ATP at the very least they need to avoid having back-to-back Masters events like Canada/Cincinnati and Rome/Hamburg unless, like Indian Wells and Miami, they are spread over two weeks, and they probably need to reduce the number of masters events overall.

If a top player has to play 4 Grandslams, the End of Year Championship, and then 9 masters events he is hard-pressed to play too many other tournaments, which means that 'lesser' venues are far less likely to see the world's best players (South American clay circuit for example). This is worse for players whose 'home' events are not at GS or MS tournaments - Federer, Djokovic, South Americans, Russians and myriad Eastern Europeans spring to mind. What the ATP has done is strike a blow for MS tournaments like Paris that have a bad slots in the calendar against the global reach of tennis. The other risk is the unedifying one of top players turning up to tank matches in the early rounds to meet their commitments.

Rather than limit their actions to hammering the players and trying to squeeze more work out of exhausted and injury-prone bodies, the tours need as well to take on the vested interests of tournaments.

Same goes for the women - far too many of them get injured, forcing them to play more does not make sense.

All this is said, to a degree, through gritted teeth because the self-indulgent and unapologetic attitude of some players does work against their self-interest. If they want sympathy for their sound arguments they do need to behave as if the world did not owe them a living.

I think the tennis season needs a total schedule overhaul to be fair anyway, balance it out a lot more. then these punishments are a great idea IMO ;)

ANother thing about it is, can a player site fatigue as an injury in this sytem???

Who knows, the details will surely become clearer...

As I said, training schedules will change as a result...

It's hard enough to get Serena on a tennis court as it is, banning her is hardly going to help :rolleyes:

well tough roflmao

might give her time to enter celebrity fit club roflmao

roflmao

I don't think they should ban you, I think you should get points deducted for pulling out for 'injury', when you're ok a few days later for a grand slam :rolleyes:

I think FIFTEEN POINTS should be fair ;)

1,500 maybe ;)

i'll go 50 for a tier III, 100 for a tier II, 150 for a Tier I