This year, mostly thanks to Serena, will be remembered by most as the year of the top heavy/bottom heavy draws. I was just wondering if people agree that event organizers should take into account other factors rather than just the players ranking when creating seeds/draws? I most certainly think that a players race ranking should be taken into account on top the ongoing rankings. Maybe seeding players on current form would be taking things too far. Or maybe people prefer the top players meeting up in earlier rounds to make for unexpected finals? Thoughts please :)

I understand what you are saying, but I am not sure if taking the race into account will help or hinder events that have happened this year with Serena and Justine meeting in three successive quarter finals rather than later.

If seedings are to be judged on race points as well you will find a lot of players playing the earlier season events just to get a higher race point advantage so they can get better rankings later on in the year, I am fairly certain this will penalise players like Serena even more because she doesn't seem ready to busy herself anytime soon. This will also make the player attendance of tournaments very top heavy to the start of the year I would imagine.

The only solution to the draws we have this season is for the top players such as the Williams girls to play more and gain the ranking points their talent deserves to avoid those quarter final matches and to do that it means a return to the top 4 for both... which I don't think is likely just yet... maybe sometime later next year though.

In all honesty, does it really matter where the players meet? I mean at the end of it all the best player should ultimately win the tournament.For me in any Grand Slam, its fair game from the 4th Round onwards.Surely we will be disappointed if our favourites meet early but they have to meet eventually!

:darkangel:

i agree about the best player winning through anyway, but look at the non event finals we had at FO and SW19

was this something that the hated Round Robin was meant to try to even out?

I am by no means justifying that hated thing, just that it seemed to try to address that sort of point that liam brought up

The US Open final wasn't that much better.

but at least there was an air of excitement about that match. Justine and Venus winning their matches brought no surprises, and i wasnt even that bothered aBOUT WATCHING THEM

edit: sorry bout caps :blush:

:ok:

:darkangel:

I don't know... After the Justine Venus match the final of the US Open managed to thrill me very little. I'm hoping Venus continues to get back to her best form and Serena can join her and Justine and hopefully a rejuvanated Sharapova and Lindsay (add in a more mature Jankovic and Ivanovic to the mix as well) for a more competitive tour next year.

sorry Gav, i was thinking of the AO. The fact that we havent had a single decent GS final match up all year doesnt bode well though. Lets hope the YEC makes up for it

I agree that the draws for the women's slams have been pretty uneven.

The USO and RG were especially bad in that respect.

Then at the AO Serena was ranked 80 something and totally outplayed the world number 2 in the final.

SW19.. Venus outclasses everyone, whilst seeded 24 or something. The lowest seed to win SW19 for a long time.

I would personally prefer to see them seeded in the top 4, as this is where they belong right now.


But this is a matter of opinion.

how should this be set up so that a draw is done more objectively? Preferential treatment to anyone with 5+ slams, or anyone who has won that slam more than once?

I'd prefer the likes of JH, Serena, Vee to be seeded to meet no earlier than the semi's. Heightens the anticipation for the tournament, and enables the top players to pace their tournament to peak at the latter stages, rather than say in the last 16!

Let's face it, in at least 3 of the 4 slams, the 'final' was in an earlier round than the final itself. The same cannot be said for the men's matches, where the big match was the actual final in 3 of the 4 slams..

Problem with that is you will surely end up with less motivation for some of the lower ranked players to play as many tournaments and some of the smaller tournaments may well fall off the calender. To be honest I think if you are serious about tennis and gdoign well you should be playing a more full calender and thus getting the points your talent deserves. Otherwise you are just letting players get away with not commiting as much to the sport.

As soon as any subjectivity is introduced to the process, tournament organisers would be in for a nightmare. The only way I could see it working would be to offer 'wildcard seedings', where (for instance) the top 7 seeds go on rankings and the 8th seed is decided by the tournament referee and director, then subsequent seven seeds go with ranking with another wildcard placing available at no.16. This would then protect players that come back from injury, that have a particularly good record at a specific event etc.
This kind of system would still encourage players to support events and to push to be inside the top 7 or the top 16 to ensure a set place in the draw. :shrug:
I like the fact that all seedings are statistical (although Wimbledon tinker with theirs) because it protects organisers from the wrath of players/parents/managers. :phew:

The rankings dont lie, and are a reflection of a sustained excellence (or not) and consistency. If Venus and Serena couldnt be bothered to do a whole years full work on the tour then they dont deserve high seedings. Simple as really

What about players that can't play a full season? John Isner was the top player at the top college (Georgia won the NCAA) but was part of the college program so couldn't play pro events. When he got out of college he had to apply for wildcards into qualifying for Challengers and when he did well, everybody on the outside was surprised because he was unknown and had no ranking. :rolleyes: If he hadn't been given wildcards, he would still be playing local tournaments to get some national ranking points to get automatic entry into Challengers. At the same time, I could go to play Challengers in Fiji or Korea and get ATP points against weak competition and get a world ranking higher than Isner, who would spank me all over the court. Sorry to burst your bubble Sam, but the system is never perfect.

There are always players injured or out of the game for some reason or another, and i dont think the rankings are always accurate, although they are probably as fair as they can be. I love the idea of seeded wilcards though :ok:

It's pretty smooth, and shouldn't be adjusted for so-called "big guns"

How do you know that Isner will necessarily be doing so well in 6 months time?

I hate that idea of seeded wildcards too!

I have no idea how Isner will do in 6 months time, but just pointing out how well he has done over the last 6 months. Hard to argue with that. He was a very good player before he had a ranking, so the system just hadn't picked him up. Lucky for him he got given wildcards.
On the other side is where the system fails most though, with those players in certain countries (or visitors to those countries) able to face mediocre competition and get ATP rankings and therefore direct entries into Challengers, whereas players in stronger countries may never get the opportunity to play at the higher level because they don't have the points. The system fails some people.
Sorry you don't like my idea. It was only that - an idea. (By the way, it was not literally to seed wildcards, it was to have 'wildcard seedings', where the tournament organisers can take, say, the 20th ranked player in an event and seed them at 16, or at 8, if form or history supports it.)