Tennis/tour news

[lau]

lau said:

"I was contacted late at night my time and did not fully understand the issues being discussed and I made a judgment call on what seemed fair."

My favourite part

[Annie]

I apologise to James for giving false hope and to Evgeny for the confusion. I regret that I got involved, that I overruled a supervisor, and I regret this storm in a teacup

My favourite part

[Alya10]

From The Guardian
sport.guardian.co.uk/breakingnews/feedstory/0,,-6453464,00.html

Blake calls on ATP to change rules after Vegas fiasco
By Simon Cambers

LAS VEGAS, March 2 (Reuters) - World number six James Blake called on the ATP Tour to change the rules at round-robin tournaments after a bizarre 24 hours when he went out of the Las Vegas Open, was reinstated and then eliminated again.
"If some good can come out of it, the revamping or destruction of the round-robin system, then that is something," Blake told reporters on Friday.
"It seriously needs to be looked at. We're going to run into situations every single week."
The American made his initial exit when Juan Martin del Potro retired during their round-robin match on Thursday.
Blake, leading 6-1 3-1, needed to beat the Argentine with the loss of no more than five games to reach the quarter-finals.
But, under the rules, del Potro's withdrawal meant he had only completed one match, knocking him out of a three-way tie with Blake and Russian Evgeny Korolev in Group 1.
Since Korolev had beaten Blake in their round-robin match, the Russian advanced.
The ATP then reinstated Blake, saying it was a commonsense decision because the rule had not been properly explained, only to reverse its U-turn on Friday morning.
Under its own rules, the sport's governing body cannot overrule the ATP supervisor on such matters.
"After hearing all the reasons...I completely understand the rule," said Blake. "Evgeny deserves to be in the quarter-finals.

RULES FLAW
"The only thing is that a possible flaw in the rules has been exposed in this round-robin format."
Blake questioned the amount of control a player had in the situation del Potro found himself in.
"Once (he) was down 6-1 3-1 he could have lost a few more games and allowed me to go through or he could have retired and let Evgeny go through," said Blake.
"To put that kind of control in a player's hands is something that needs to be looked at."
Korolev thought the right decision was reached.
"It's a really difficult situation," he said. "I was a little angry but you have to understand the situation.
"James is a nice guy and I hope he's not angry with me. The thing is you cannot change the rules in the middle of a tournament."
Korolev said many players were against the round-robin format.
"I am actually glad this happened because a lot of players do not agree with the round-robin system," said the Russian.
The 19-year-old said he barely had any sleep after going to bed at 0300 but still managed to beat American Sam Querrey 6-4 6-4 to reach his first ATP semi-final.
"I was happy to play but I was also thinking how James would feel," said Korolev. "I felt a little guilty."

RR seems to be reaching its last days
And thumbs up to Zhenya for being such a good sport!

[lau]

Don´t you just looooooove this guy


www.sportinglife.com/tennis/news/story_get.cgi?STORY_NAME=tennis/07/03/05/TENNIS_Blake.html
ATP CHIEF PLAYS DOWN BLAKE ERROR

By Mark Garrod, PA Sport

ATP Tour chief Etienne de Villiers has accepted full responsibility for the confusion last week when top seed James Blake was knocked out of the tournament in Las Vegas, then re-instated, then told he was out again.

De Villers, executive chairman and president of the men's tour, was in London on Monday at a press conference primarily concerned with publicising the Artois Championships at Queen's Club in June but found himself being quizzed about Blake.

"Personally I made a mistake," he said.

"But we need to get things into perspective. We didn't make a decision to invade Iraq.

"I've heard words like 'doom' and 'apocalyptic', but 2 1/2 million starving in Africa is a disaster - this is a furry ball going over a net." ( Revealing!!)

Blake needed to win his final round-robin game against Juan Martin Del Potro in straight sets for the loss of at most five games to reach the quarter-finals, but the Argentinian retired when trailing 6-1 3-1.

The rules appeared to mean that Russia's Evgeny Korolev went through based on his win over Blake, but it was then announced that Blake was progressing "on the basis that the rules were not sufficiently explained".

The following morning, however, Korolev was woken and told he was the one in the last eight after all, with his management spokesman Patricio Apey having previously commented: "The ATP says they're changing the rules to help the fans and if that's the case, they should pay for some clowns to come and put on a circus."

De Villiers did not want to answer questions, but stated: "I was wrong to do it. I came at it from the position of fairness, but I regret having become involved. It's taught me a valuable lesson that we should not change our rules as we go along". (wasn´t he suposed to know that?)

"Mistakes were made by me and not the organisation. I'm now advocating that we accelerate our review process. Hopefully it didn't affect anybody's life or anybody's livelihood - and I am never going to regret trying things." (the last part is actually scary LMAO)

The ATP are experimenting with round-robin events, but the organisers of the pre-Wimbledon Artois Championships, having initially wanted to be included in the experiment, have now decided it would require another day's play and have changed their minds.

Previously known as the Stella Artois, the tournament today announced that world number two Rafael Nadal, defending champion Lleyton Hewitt, three-time winner Andy Roddick and Britain's Andy Murray and Tim Henman are already confirmed entrants.

World number one Roger Federer is an absentee again, however. The Swiss player prefers to warm up for Wimbledon at the event in Halle, Germany, and has not been to Queens since he lost 6-3 6-0 to Zimbabwe's Byron Black in 1999.

Federer was 17 at the time and it remains the last occasion he was whitewashed in a set.

An increased capacity of 6,858 will watch the centre court action on June 11-17 and they will, subject to two further tests, also witness the 'Hawk-Eye' electronic line-calling system being used for the first time on grass and for the first time at an ATP event in the United Kingdom.







I wish I could use the "At least I didn´t invade Irak" with my boss some day And duh? of course a sport is less important than a world peace, but it´s YOUR JOB!

Yes, I´m furious about what he said LOL

[bia2209]

Well not to minimize the importance of war or starving children in Africa and any number of other incredibly serious and tragic situations in the world, but if that is what De Villiers is worried about then he needs to go work for the UN or Human Rights Watch or someplace like that leave the game of tennis in the hands of people who actually care about it and don't reduce it to some incredibly ridiculous metaphor about balls of fur.

[Alya10]

Totally stupid interview!!! Doesn't even deserve a comment :S

[Happiness]

Hi everyone

After all this mess up I'm even scared to think what will Etienne de Villiers invent up next!!!

Take Care




Happiness

[Alya10]

I hope Estoril drops the RR format now or it will be a mess :-(

[Happiness]

alya10 said:

I hope Estoril drops the RR format now or it will be a mess :-(

Couldn't agree more with you!!! But have faith. After all João Lagos said even before all this mess up that was possible. Let's be positive!!! Otherwise EO will only be good because of one thing: You'll be there!!!

[Alya10]

happiness said:

alya10 said:

I hope Estoril drops the RR format now or it will be a mess :-(

Couldn't agree more with you!!! But have faith. After all João Lagos said even before all this mess up that was possible. Let's be positive!!! Otherwise EO will only be good because of one thing: You'll be there!!!

João Lagos heard our prayers ;D
EO droped the RR format! YAY!

Thanks for the SMS Happiness
kisses

[Annie]

Davis sweetie I moved your post to the Rankings thread in Marat Forum Hope you don't mind ;D

[Alya10]

ATP Ends Round Robin Experiment
www.atptennis.com/en/news/2007/roundrobin.asp

The ATP Board has voted to end the experimentation with round robin formats on the ATP tour, it was announced today. The remaining events who had initially volunteered for the round robin format will now revert to the original knock out competition.

The ATP had begun testing several versions of the format at lower level events this year following initial research that indicated it could be a measure to provide significant growth to the game.

The research showed it was popular among casual fans because it gave them more opportunity to see their local and favorite players than in a traditional knockout format. The format also had the added benefit of allowing tournaments to showcase their marquee players deeper into the tournament week and made TV scheduling of matches easier and more promotable.

However, the carefully monitored testing at the five test case events this year raised a number of concerns and weaknesses that were not apparent from desk research. Firstly, the 32 hybrid format caused confusion; second, resolving who would progress from the round robin stage with 3 men groups was often complicated; and third, sections of the media had difficulty in reporting round robin and consequently fans not at the event had difficultly in following early results. Finally, and significantly, no format or rule could address the overwhelming player concern that their destiny was not in their own hands as a result of dead matches or withdrawals.

The ATP Board considered all the research and analysis gathered during the experiment both from outside research agencies and tournament volunteers and concluded while there was a considerable amount of encouraging data, in the end the negatives outweighed the positives.

“The ATP is determined to be fact based, and not opinion led. We’re committed to a philosophy of ‘do it, try it, fix it or lose it,’ with initiatives that could grow our sport,” said ATP Chairman and President Etienne de Villiers. “We take all stakeholders into account, especially our players and tournaments, when we make decisions but will always have a fan focus.”

“It was a good experiment and we learned a lot from it. Some experiments will work and others won’t, but we will keep trying to find new and better ways of growing the appeal of men’s professional tennis,” de Villiers said.
_________

Ufffffffffffffffff! Finally the light has shone ;D
Just for the record: THANKS Zhenya, Marat, Leyton, Roger and all other players that were caught in the confusion and spoke up

[jenhatter06]

alya10 said:

Just for the record: THANKS Zhenya, Marat, Leyton, Roger and all other players that were caught in the confusion and spoke up

totally agree! thank goodness that fiasco is over!

[Mrs. Fabregas]

YAAAAAY! The ATP has finally came to sences......... Is was time for it too!
Back to the normal way of a tournament.... If you lose, you lose!
And if you win -> next round is waiting! Much better!!!!!!

And ofcourse........ Our special thanx to all the tennis players, who spoke up and were caught in it!
Bet they'll be happy aboutt it too!

[maribrasil]

From MTF:

blogs.sun-sentinel.com/sports_tennisblog/2007/03/nadal_robredo_s.html

Nadal, Robredo Slam ATP Schedule Plans

KEY BISCAYNE -- Rafael Nadal is not happy. Neither is Tommy Robredo. Nor are about 60 players who earn a big part of their salary on clay courts and who signed a petition that Nadal and Robredo waved at ATP CEO Etienne de Villiers in an extremely noisy, extremely unpleasant meeting Tuesday night.

Things got so out of hand, according to one of my moles, that dozens of players walked out of this mandatory players meeting, which was called to go over a number of issues -- not the least of which was to explore plans to eliminate Monte Carlo as a Masters Series event in 2009 and reduce the prize money there from $2.1 million to about $500,000.

They're also not happy about plans to downgrade another Masters event in Hamburg.

Things became so contentious in the meeting that at one point Roger Federer got up from his seat at the front and moved to the back of the room because "it was quieter back there."

More than one source said that de Villiers was having trouble controlling the temperament of the meeting, which is unfortunate because what he's trying to do is the right path. If the ATP is to streamline its schedule by reducing one of the nine Masters Series events, Monte Carlo is it. It's a great site, with the courts overlooking the Mediterranean, but the revenues there are nothing to brag about.

Those clay courters who are demanding de Villiers instead eliminate one of the four North American hardcourt Masters Series events (Indian Wells, Key Biscayne, Cincinnati and Canada) are dreaming. All four of these events produce solid revenues.

Monte Carlo is a clay court event which has been won over the last several years by Nadal, Guillermo Coria, Juan Carlos Ferrero and Gustavo Kuerten. Hamburg, which is two weeks before the French Open, was won last year by Robredo. It's cold there in mid-May. It can be wet and the clay can be very heavy.

Nothing was settled at the meeting, but de Villiers got a major earful. That's something he didn't need a couple weeks after fumbling the round robin problem in Las Vegas. One thing is clear. There's a deep split among the players and de Villiers, who is a strong "people person," has to find a way to bring Robredo and Nadal and their supporters into some kind of compromise with those who either don't care about Monte Carlo and Hamburg or who make their money essentially on the hardcourts.

Another meeting like this could drive a very deep wedge not only between the players and the ATP management, but between players themselves.