The tournament collates the world’s top eight players in a uniquely formatted event, with the aim being to crown the year’s number one player on the tour.
It comes at the climax of a grueling season for the world’s best-hardly an ideal time for the players-but to be honest it’s the only appropriate occasion to decide who’s been the finest player of the year.
The tour as a whole has come in for plenty of criticism from ex-professionals and current players due to its hectic scheduling, but given that players can pick and choose which tournaments they do and don’t play in do they really have much of an argument?
Surely it’s the ATP’s points and ranking policy that needs to be looked into further, given that they take the points from a players last twelve finishes in the past year, and that then forces players into playing a high number of tournaments to retain there ranking position.
If the ATP puts less onus on the points of tournaments then will it decrease the credibility and the need to play these events that aren’t worth much towards your ranking?
The enormity of this weeks tournament puts added pressure on players to play more tournaments to reach it, meaning injuries and niggles have to be ignored for the most part, hence the queries behind the player’s exhaustion.
The way the Williams sisters deal with the tour is a case in point; the younger Serena restricts her involvement in the WTA tour due to her age and stage and plays fewer tournaments per year that her competitors.
It’s a damming reflection on the women’s game that despite this she can still achieve a number one ranking, so in truth the depth of the women’s division means her treatment of the tour works well within the strict points system.
This is a sole example of a player being able to shape their season as they want, and also being able to preserve a high ranking; it’s unlikely anyone else, especially on the men’s game could afford such a luxury.
The depth and quality of the men’s game means qualification for this weeks event is never assured for most players until the final tour event in Paris, which is used as a pathway for most players to qualify for the year ending event.
The schedule and demands on the players to try and qualify for this tournament had led to a number of withdrawals due to injury in recent years, with the most recent being American Andy Roddick, who even after one of his more successful years on tour has to sit on the sidelines ruing is bad luck.
It’s a great shame that Roddick can’t show off his immense improvement on the court as he would have been a real threat to any one of the seven other qualifiers, but it probably highlights the huge effort the 27-year old made just to get this far.
The strains players go through throughout the season shows they do care about this season ending event and definitely their ranking, but does it have the prestige to be compared to any of the four majors?
Well the points on offer is the largest outside of the four majors, (1,500) the quality of the players can’t be questioned and the prize money and organization of the event is consistently second to none.
The event has been staged in some of the world’s biggest cities such as New York, Tokyo, Sydney, Shanghai and for the next five years London’s O2 Arena, a ploy to spread the importance of the event- a shrewd move by the ATP.
The four major’s have the history and integrity that is widely acknowledged, and the constant changing of this events venue means its significance can be preached throughout the Tennis world and therefore it’s profile can be raised.
One thing that is certain is that the professionals see the significance.
Nine time finalist Ivan Lendl will be the first to profess the tournament’s substance after his five victories in the 80’s, and along with him some of the greatest players to ever hold a racket have at one time held aloft this trophy.
Roger Federer, Bjorn Borg, Pete Sampras and John McEnroe can all boast multiple wins in this competition and if that’s not a definition of its importance then nothing is.
And isn’t that the whole point at the end of the day?
If the top players take the tournament seriously then their drive and enthusiasm will shine though, and the importance of the tournament will just grow and grow.
Whether this tour ending event can be considered a fifth major or not isn’t clear, but given some of the performances we’ve already seen in Greenwich this week, the players certainly understand the magnitude of the event.
No comments:
Post a Comment