A Masters 1000 on grass is feasible in Germany

Benhur

Hall of Fame
And it would be very welcome by the majority of tennis fans.

Schedule: all that would be required is for Wimbledon to start two weeks later than its current starting date. The new tournament would then start one week after the end of RG and it would end one week before the beginning of Wimbledon. So everything else (Queens etc.) could remain the same.

Location: it would be odd to have a Masters followed by Wimbledon right in the same city, so the new tournament should take place somewhere else in Europe. Germany looks like the ideal candidate, since they lost their Hamburg Masters a few years ago, and they have the best means to put something like this together. They could for example enhance their current facilities in Halle for such an event, or create a new site.

The tennis calendar would still remain heavily tilted toward hard courts, but it would but an improvement. Everybody finds the grass season much too short. A tournament like this would be the single most effective measure to improve the balance between surfaces.

The Shanghai masters could be made optional, so there would be a total of 10 Masters 1000, two of them optional.

1 Grass
3 Clay (1 optional)
5 Hard (1 optional)
1 Indoor Hard
 
"Everybody finds the grass season much too short"???? Huh? Apparently most find it much too long. Have you noticed that right after Wimbledon the top players either head for the Mercedes Cup or Swedish Open, both on clay, or take some time off. The concurrent Hall of Fame tournament, on Rhode Island grass, always gets a dismal field.
 
"Everybody finds the grass season much too short"???? Huh? Apparently most find it much too long. Have you noticed that right after Wimbledon the top players either head for the Mercedes Cup or Swedish Open, both on clay, or take some time off. The concurrent Hall of Fame tournament, on Rhode Island grass, always gets a dismal field.

WE NEED A MASTERS 1000 event!!!!!!!!!!!
 

TCG

Semi-Pro
It would be awesome to have a masters on grass. I hope ATP does something about it before Roger retires.
 
It would be awesome to have a masters on grass. I hope ATP does something about it before Roger retires.

ATP is gonna troll him bad I feel...they only got a few years until he retires...watch them introduce it the tear after he retires and Donald Young wins it
 

batz

G.O.A.T.
And it would be very welcome by the majority of tennis fans.

Schedule: all that would be required is for Wimbledon to start two weeks later than its current starting date. The new tournament would then start one week after the end of RG and it would end one week before the beginning of Wimbledon. So everything else (Queens etc.) could remain the same.

Location: it would be odd to have a Masters followed by Wimbledon right in the same city, so the new tournament should take place somewhere else in Europe. Germany looks like the ideal candidate, since they lost their Hamburg Masters a few years ago, and they have the best means to put something like this together. They could for example enhance their current facilities in Halle for such an event, or create a new site.

The tennis calendar would still remain heavily tilted toward hard courts, but it would but an improvement. Everybody finds the grass season much too short. A tournament like this would be the single most effective measure to improve the balance between surfaces.

The Shanghai masters could be made optional, so there would be a total of 10 Masters 1000, two of them optional.

1 Grass
3 Clay (1 optional)
5 Hard (1 optional)
1 Indoor Hard

Good luck with that. AELTC have just agreed to move it by 1 week and I believe that they took some convincing. I love the idea of a grass MS, but it ain't happening in the near term. There really isn't a business case for it.

Maybe if Larry buys Queen's we'll get one :)
 

Benhur

Hall of Fame
"Everybody finds the grass season much too short"???? Huh? Apparently most find it much too long. Have you noticed that right after Wimbledon the top players either head for the Mercedes Cup or Swedish Open, both on clay, or take some time off. The concurrent Hall of Fame tournament, on Rhode Island grass, always gets a dismal field.

Well of course. The season effectively ends with Wimbledon; nobody wants to enter minuscule events on grass after that. What would be the point? The only way to lengthen the grass season is to have a Masters level tournament before it. And the simplest way to do it without disrupting everything else is to have Wimbledon start a couple of weeks later, which could be done.
 
Of course a M1000 on Grass is feasible, the question is do they powers that be want one? Nope, they want more ultra slow hardcourts of course.
 

raging

Professional
Good luck with that. AELTC have just agreed to move it by 1 week and I believe that they took some convincing. I love the idea of a grass MS, but it ain't happening in the near term. There really isn't a business case for it.

Maybe if Larry buys Queen's we'll get one :)

Larry would have to build 2 covered courts there as well.:)
Why the LTA haven't done that to secure Queens escapes me!
No point in adding a Grass Court Masters tournament without that!
(Especially not in the UK in June).

All England definitely won't be moving Wimbledon back another week so it is really unlikely.( From what I heard about all the lobbying done by the ATP to get 1 more week). A pity as it would be great to have had a grass MS...
Unfortunately the ATP waited too long & allowed their other tournaments to become too established. Now they have to take dates, times from their other events.

Halle would be a great location but the present site is a bit small...Hamburg was a brilliant Clay event & really added to the clay swing. Unfortunately it was cold & often wet. Big bad Ion Tiriac decided Madrid needed a Clay Masters & did some very good business.

As Batz pointed out it is not very good business to make a Masters Grass tournament in any country prior to Wimbledon & just after RG.
If any event had a chance it would be Queens in 2015.
They better get that roof built fast!
 

JRstriker12

Hall of Fame
"Everybody finds the grass season much too short"???? Huh? Apparently most find it much too long. Have you noticed that right after Wimbledon the top players either head for the Mercedes Cup or Swedish Open, both on clay, or take some time off. The concurrent Hall of Fame tournament, on Rhode Island grass, always gets a dismal field.

From a fan perspective, I think most fans wouldn't mind a sort of grass series leading up to Wimby.

But for a player's prespective, why play grass if it's AFTER Wimbledon? I think most players play a grass tournament or two as practice for wimby but there's no reason to play grass afterwards since everything else is hard or clay.

I also think most of the European based players would prefer to stay closer to home (Merc Cup / Swedish open) which is followed by a 500 series tournament in Germany rather than travel to the US at that point.
 

JRstriker12

Hall of Fame
And it would be very welcome by the majority of tennis fans.

Schedule: all that would be required is for Wimbledon to start two weeks later than its current starting date. The new tournament would then start one week after the end of RG and it would end one week before the beginning of Wimbledon. So everything else (Queens etc.) could remain the same.

Location: it would be odd to have a Masters followed by Wimbledon right in the same city, so the new tournament should take place somewhere else in Europe. Germany looks like the ideal candidate, since they lost their Hamburg Masters a few years ago, and they have the best means to put something like this together. They could for example enhance their current facilities in Halle for such an event, or create a new site.

The tennis calendar would still remain heavily tilted toward hard courts, but it would but an improvement. Everybody finds the grass season much too short. A tournament like this would be the single most effective measure to improve the balance between surfaces.

The Shanghai masters could be made optional, so there would be a total of 10 Masters 1000, two of them optional.

1 Grass
3 Clay (1 optional)
5 Hard (1 optional)
1 Indoor Hard

While more grass would be cool, why is it feasible?

I don't see the All England Club budging on moving the date of the tournament and it's not like the ATP could or would make them.

Hamburg lost the Masters series because the calendar was too crowded and it started the day after the Masters event in Rome (http://espn.go.com/sports/tennis/blog/_/name/tennis/id/2839340/atp-masters-series-odds) So I don't see the ATP adding another masters to an already tight calendar.

Also, aren't masters events mandatory for the most part? Plus the ATP has its eye on Asia, so I don't see that happening in Shanghai.

It would also take a huge investment at Halle to go from a 250 event to a masters event both in the terms of facility improvements and prize money. Don't know if the Halle tournament owners are committed to that.
 

Nadal_2008

New User
Be great to have a grass court masters in Hamburg before Wimbledon, but never going to happen as Wimbledon would never move 2 weeks back as they would clash with the British Golf Open. They only decided to move back 1 week recently because The British Grand Prix has move forward a week and now clashes with the men's final.

Unfortunately neither the ATP or the ITF have any control or power over the timing of the grand slams,that is down to each individual major. In an ideal world the Australian would be in March with a couple of masters 1000s events before it, the French open 1 week forward, Wimbledon 1 week back and a grass court masters 1000 event in between.
 

MonkeyBoy

Hall of Fame
I think there should be no grass masters or other major tournaments to preserve the novelty of Wimbledon. I do think, however, that there should be more variety on tour. Maybe more indoor hard masters... What about indoor clay? Reintroduction of carpet courts? Wooden courts?
 
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