Retirements in the Australian Open warm-up tournaments

[viktorkwan]

Okay, let's face it...most of the players playing in the Brisbane International, Qatar Open, Chennai Open and the ASB Classic are still fine-tuning their games after the much-needed break at the end of 2008.

And they will continue to build on their fitness and timing etc over the next week at the Sydney Medibank International and Kooyong Classic.

We all know they are only at these tournaments to prepare themselves for the Australian Open, but does it justify the high number of retirements in recent years at the Medibank International?

Fans pay money to attend the tournament, and TV networks pay big money to broadcast the tournament. Should the players retire from their matches or even pull out after winning 1 or 2 rounds, citing problems such as "stomach strain" and "heat exhaustion"?

Just because they know where their tennis is at, and not wanting to risk injuring themselves, they pull out of the warm-up tournaments. Often, they will travel to Melbourne asap and continue practising there!

There have been cases of genuine injury, such as when Serena Williams twisted her ankle against Meghann Shaughnessy in the 2002 semis, but most of the other ones are rather dodgy.

Any comments?

[Tennis_Monk]

Okay, let's face it...most of the players playing in the Brisbane International, Qatar Open, Chennai Open and the ASB Classic are still fine-tuning their games after the much-needed break at the end of 2008.

And they will continue to build on their fitness and timing etc over the next week at the Sydney Medibank International and Kooyong Classic.

We all know they are only at these tournaments to prepare themselves for the Australian Open, but does it justify the high number of retirements in recent years at the Medibank International?

Fans pay money to attend the tournament, and TV networks pay big money to broadcast the tournament. Should the players retire from their matches or even pull out after winning 1 or 2 rounds, citing problems such as "stomach strain" and "heat exhaustion"?

Just because they know where their tennis is at, and not wanting to risk injuring themselves, they pull out of the warm-up tournaments. Often, they will travel to Melbourne asap and continue practising there!

There have been cases of genuine injury, such as when Serena Williams twisted her ankle against Meghann Shaughnessy in the 2002 semis, but most of the other ones are rather dodgy.

Any comments?

As a fan i agree with you. However i dont know of any system that we can put in place to prevent a top pro from with drawing at small tournaments.

As a fan i feel bad when i go to a tournament to see a top player play and when he pulls out. As a player i see this as a strategic option.