The Long Season

Professional tennis in the Fall has one recurring theme, the ongoing debate over the length of the tennis season. Players, the media, fans, everyone loves weighing in on this topic and invariably the constant theme is the tennis calendar is too long. However it does a disservice to simplify the debate without an objective and detailed understanding of all the opposing forces that have created this long-standing issue.

There are a few ways of looking at this. The most obvious is that if something should be a certain way, just get it done and make it happen. Unfortunately, much like in life, tennis is complicated, and sometimes what should happen on the surface has a zillion moving parts and if one is tweaked there is a ripple effect on many other parts of the system.

I'm sure we can all agree that tennis is an incredibly physical sport with the additional component of its international nature leading to excessive travel across multiple timezones. Players need ample time to regenerate both physically and mentally. How many times have you returned home from a two week road trip and felt you needed a few days to recover from living out of a suitcase? Now imagine 32 to 40 weeks on the road each year. Even if a player can carve out 6 weeks off at the end of the season, very little of that time can be used to completely detach from the sport because so much time is required to build a physical base for the upcoming season. That’s the bad news.

The good news is that the main reason professional tennis is active 11 months a year is because of the demand for the product throughout the world. Tennis has prospered in regions like the Far East, South America, and Eastern Europe, creating more job opportunities for tennis players. The ATP WORLD TOUR has an obligation to all of its members, both players and tournaments alike, to create and foster job opportunities when possible. It is a difficult balance to moderate and one that obviously has a ways to go.

Fostering change in tennis is always a difficult proposition because of the many competing interests. Top players, who are carrying a disproportionate responsibility in the prosperity of the game, would certainly advocate a shorter schedule, thus creating more time to rest but also to allow more opportunity for lucrative “special events” like exhibitions where the work/reward ratio is tremendous. Lower ranked players will always push back against a shorter calendar, as they want the opportunity to play more and thus make more money.

We know one thing for sure, we want to encourage and foster an environment that enables and encourages our star players to stay active in the sport as long as possible. Hopefully we all can work together to find a balance that keeps both the players and sport healthy.

What do you think?

~ Justin

The Fall Tennis Season

For many the perception of professional tennis in the Fall is one of the players being on cruise control. That is hardly the case, quite the contrary actually.

The intensity and pressure reaches tremendous heights as players vie for 2 major goals. For the top echelon of players it is securing their place in the World Tour Finals, debuting in London this year, which promises to be an amazing event. The 2nd goal pertains to every professional tennis player, regardless of their ranking or stature in the sport, achieving the highest year-end ranking they possibly can.

The Fall schedule on the ATP World Tour calendar has a prestigious swing through Asia highlighted by 500 Series events in Beijing and Tokyo, followed by the inaugural Master’s 1000 event taking place at a mega facility in Shanghai. Following the Asian swing, players choose from numerous events in Europe, with the final Master’s 1000 event taking place in Paris before the top 8 players of the 2009 season participate in the 5th major, the World Tour Finals. So far Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal.

Andy Murray, Novak Djokovic, and Juan Martin Del Potro have secured their places in London, but the final 3 spots are totally up for grabs. Andy Roddick, Fernando Verdasco, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Robin Soderling, Giles Simon and Nikolay Davydenko are the players best positioned to compete for the remaining spots. In addition to the ATP World Tour events, the Davis Cup final between Spain and the Czech Republic will take place in the beginning of December in Spain, as Spain will try to repeat as champions.

There are many intriguing story lines that will be answered in the last few weeks of the 2009 tennis year. How will Juan Martin Del Potro respond to the hero’s welcome he received upon returning to his native Argentina after winning the US OPEN? Rafael Nadal left the US OPEN with questions regarding his health after an abdominal injury and he will be looking to get back to his winning ways. Andy Murray had an enigmatic loss at the US OPEN and will be facing tremendous pressure coming back home to London for the World Tour Finals. Roger Federer looks to finish off his monumental year on a positive note. Novak Djokovic will be defending last year’s win in the World Tour Finals, while Andy Roddick will be trying to find the form that put him within points of the Wimbledon crown. Fernando Verdasco and Robin Soderling are trying to punctuate their breakthrough years by gaining their 1st berths in the World Tour Finals.

All and all there will be some scintillating tennis down the stretch of this already enticing 2009 season, so check it out, and enjoy.