ATP - Please help me understand why so many clay tournaments

[tennisaddict]

Can the experts here please explain why the ATP allows so many clay tournaments ? It is more than 2 months since the French Open got over and still there are the 500 / 250's clay tournaments being played.

Is it because Europe / South America find clay surface tennis most entertaining ?

Why not have a longer grass season or a Europe hard court season ? Everything other than the clay season seems so short. You just have Brisbane and Sydney before Australian, Queens and Halle before Wimbledon and a few more for the US open. But when it comes to clay, it starts all the way from Feb and goes till August.

While Fish, Isner , Gulbis and Co are sweating in this heat on the hard surfaces, Simon, Almagro, Chela keep accumulating points on the slow clay surfaces. That brings an other question - Shouldnt there be a limit on the number of clay tournaments that you can accumulate points from ?

One way to look at the lack of American tennis growth , is also probably due to this factor. Anything other than the ATP250 at Houston ?

While i do like clay tennis, i think there needs to be equal representation of the different surfaces.

Please share views and correct me if i have some misunderstanding.

 

[Kaz00]

Every event is clay expect Cincinnati, Paris Indoors, and recently the WTF has changed from clay to low bouncing clay.

 

[Towser83]

It's probably done to appease the clay court specialists who earn most of their points on clay.

Really though you get a hardcourt season from Dubai to Miami, then another one from the 500s and 250s like Washington to pretty much the end of the year.

I don't think it's fair there not much of a grass season and I also think it's bizarre to have more clay tournaments after Wimbledon. I just don't see the p;oint in going back to clay and then on to hardcourt.

 

[aphex]

I really wish people weren't so ignorant...

The type of primate called topspin, aka "the topspin monkey" was declared
an endangered species several years ago by the UN.

The ATP has to comply with the UN directives and thus promote areas where the topspin monkey thrives; i.e. clay courts...

I hope this answers your question.

 

[beast of mallorca]

I am a ******* from Greece, and I am a troll.........

 

[stringertom]

There is zero chance of shifting the traditional dates of FO/Wimby to accomodate other EuroClay events prior to RG. There are enough already...some say too many. Besides, northern and mountainous venues (Swedish & Swiss Opens) would face weather issues if held two months earlier. Hamburg was dodgy enough when it was held in May. That, and a heavy dose of Tiriacian politics, led to the demotion and rescheduling of that historic tourney.

As to AO lead-ups, Xmas/New Year's puts a limit on how many events can be held. Also, you omitted Auckland from your list. So stock a few Heinekens in your fridge (if of age) and enjoy the Kiwi Classic next January!

 

[Mainad]

Hamburg was dodgy enough when it was held in May. That, and a heavy dose of Tiriacian politics, led to the demotion and rescheduling of that historic tourney.

I started a thread on this some time ago. It still leaves me speechless that Hamburg got shafted just so that Madrid could switch to clay (no doubt to make it easier for Spanish players to win it) and Shanghai could get a Masters to compensate it for losing the WTF to London. Surprising that Germany, home of Becker, Graf and Stich and the source of a dozen or so top current 100 players,should now be the only top tennis nation in Europe without either a Slam or a Masters tourney. Who would have thought that the Germans had so little clout with the ATP?

 

[tacou]

Can the experts here please explain why the ATP allows so many clay tournaments ? It is more than 2 months since the French Open got over and still there are the 500 / 250's clay tournaments being played.

Is it because Europe / South America find clay surface tennis most entertaining ?

Why not have a longer grass season or a Europe hard court season ? Everything other than the clay season seems so short. You just have Brisbane and Sydney before Australian, Queens and Halle before Wimbledon and a few more for the US open. But when it comes to clay, it starts all the way from Feb and goes till August.

While Fish, Isner , Gulbis and Co are sweating in this heat on the hard surfaces, Simon, Almagro, Chela keep accumulating points on the slow clay surfaces. That brings an other question - Shouldnt there be a limit on the number of clay tournaments that you can accumulate points from ?

One way to look at the lack of American tennis growth , is also probably due to this factor. Anything other than the ATP250 at Houston ?

While i do like clay tennis, i think there needs to be equal representation of the different surfaces.

Please share views and correct me if i have some misunderstanding.

you have a slight misunderstanding. The ATP doesn't have as much control as you think.
there are a bunch of clubs with clay courts that hold tournaments this time of year. they offer big prize money and so players who perform better on clay than hard play these tournaments. ATP can't stop them from holding these tournaments, they can only stop awarding points for them, which would not benefit the ATP in any way.

I personally don't see the point of playing 3 ATP 250s, 1 500, 2 masters all in a row on hard court in the sweltering heat. Bad for your body. Look at Simon, whom you mentioned: 500 points, tons of confidence, and much more fit at the moment than Mardy Fish.and he's still got 2 major hard court tourneys to tune up for USO.

 

[tennisaddict]

^^^The money for the ATP comes from fans and sponsors and the clubs are not funding on its own. The fans would like to see all types of courts and the sponsors wouldnt care what kind of courts they are , as long as crowd turn out is there.

If an average player plays 30 tournaments a year, then having a ceiling of max 6 or 7 tournaments a year on each surface would bring more well rounded players to the top than some clay court specialists. Today the top 6 are all court players, hence we dont realize that much, but if we go down the list, we see lot of clay courters between 10-50 rankings.

At the end of the day, wouldnt it be awesome to see a few masters on grass, more indoor hard ?

Getting to the top seems more easier if you are clay court specialist.

 

[Rob_C]

Just like Americans dont like going to Europe for 6 week stretches during the clay grass court season, Europeans also dont like coming here for 6 week stretches.

Also, most Europeans probably grew up playing on clay, just like most Americans grew up playing on hard.

 

[tacou]

^^^The money for the ATP comes from fans and sponsors and the clubs are not funding on its own. The fans would like to see all types of courts and the sponsors wouldnt care what kind of courts they are , as long as crowd turn out is there.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "the clubs are not funding on its own."
If you mean not funded on their own, that's very true, they obviously get money from ATP and sponsors, but a lot of these tournaments are 50-100 years old.
It's easier for the ATP to step into these prestigious clubs, hand over some money and assign some points than to find a place on the calendar for another grass tourney, find a club that can support an ATP tournament, advertise it to sponsors/players and all the work that has already been for the summer clay-swing tourneys.

 

[namelessone]

Clay is the last season you should be picking on. Right now, length wise, it's what every season should be, which is one third of the season. In fact I think there were more clay tourneys in the 90's, if I am not mistaken.

And BTW, the reason grass is gone is cause the cheaper HC has taken over, not because of clay. Grass is only kept alive by Wimbledon and clay would have taken the same road if the euro/south american zone wasn't in love with the surface. And even clay may be turned to HC in the future because it requires maintenance as well, though not as much as grass.

The OP also said that it is easier to make it today as a claycourt specialist. Let's take a look at the top20 of our sport:

1)Djokovic - best surface is HC.

2)Nadal - not exactly a CC specialist anymore but let's pencil him in. We have ONE so far.

3)Fed - best surface is HC.

4)Murray - best surface is HC.

5)Soderling - has titles both on clay and HC(about the same number) but since he has those two RG finals, let's pencil him in as well. We have TWO so far.

6)Berdych - I consider HC his best surface.

7)Ferrer - we have THREE so far, even though David is very competent on HC as well.

8 )Roddick - HC is where his best is at.

9)Verdasco - I actually think he is a better HC'er that CC'er but let's put him in since he is spanish. FOUR so far.

10)Youzhny - clearly HC is his best surface.

11)Melzer - equally competent on clay and grass, not what you would call a specialist.

12)Monfils - pretty much what I said about Melzer. Not a specialist.

13)Tsonga - best is on HC.

14)Cilic - again, HC is where it's at.

15)Almagro - won only clay titles in his career. FIVE players so far.

16)Fish - HC

17)Ljubicic - HC

18 )Querrey - HC

19)Isner - HC

20)Baghdatis - HC

From the current crop of top 20 players, something like 5 wait for the clay season to get a good chunk of their total points for the year. For 75% of the top 20, clay season is a good place to ADD some points, not as a basis for their ranking.

Now I ask you, if being a clay specialist is so easy, why don't we have more clay oriented players into the top 20? I said there were five, but in reality IMO there are three:

Nadal(made 36 clay finals out of his 64 career finals)
Almagro(made 14 finals, all clay)
and Ferrer(made 16 clay finals as opposed to 6 on other surfaces)

 

[tennisaddict]

Tacou

I agree with you that it is easier for ATP to maintain status-quo and work with these 50-100 year old clubs and repeating the same thing year after year.

Instead, if they step back and take a bigger picture, is it difficult to realize that the tennis in America , Australia , Britain are all suffering because there are any players of repute coming from here due to lack of success over the last several years ?

Shouldnt they be addressing the need for equal representation rather than the USTA building clay courts to develop clay courters ?

I am not concerned just for the Americans, but just at the direction at which the sport is going.

My fear is that the game is probably going to become more and more one dimensional.

 

[namelessone]

Tacou

I agree with you that it is easier for ATP to maintain status-quo and work with these 50-100 year old clubs and repeating the same thing year after year.

Instead, if they step back and take a bigger picture, is it difficult to realize that the tennis in America , Australia , Britain are all suffering because there are any players of repute coming from here due to lack of success over the last several years ?

Shouldnt they be addressing the need for equal representation rather than the USTA building clay courts to develop clay courters ?

I am not concerned just for the Americans, but just at the direction at which the sport is going.

My fear is that the game is probably going to become more and more one dimensional.

LMAO.

The US players best surface is, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, hardcourt. That is basically 60-65% of the tour. What equal representation are you talking about?

Another LMAO on making the game more one dimensional. The USTA players don't exactly have crazy variety. Harrison seems to have some potential but the rest are ballbashers/big serves. Blake,Roddick,Fish,Isner,Querrey aren't exactly renowned for their variety. They either hit hard or serve hard.

 

[tennisaddict]

LMAO.

The US players best surface is, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, hardcourt. That is basically 60-65% of the tour. What equal representation are you talking about?

Another LMAO on making the game more one dimensional. The USTA players don't exactly have crazy variety. Harrison seems to have some potential but the rest are ballbashers/big serves. Blake,Roddick,Fish,Isner,Querrey aren't exactly renowned for their variety. They either hit hard or serve hard.

I am not trying to make an argument to support US players. I agree with your assessment there.

Looking at the ATP calendar, we have 6 grass tournaments a year , compared to 25 clay court tournaments. Looks unbalanced, IMHO.

 

[lendledbergfan]

"Can the experts here please explain why the ATP allows so many clay tournaments ? It is more than 2 months since the French Open got over and still there are the 500 / 250's clay tournaments being played."

Can someone please why we have 2 MASTERS series on hard courts (and numerous other small HC tourneys like Rotterdam and Dubai) a month after the Australian Open when the next major is on clay. Why, o, why is the need of these additional HC tournaments?

 

[jokinla]

They should add one more week between Wimbledon and the French and move Queens a week earlier and turn it into a Masters series, giving the players who do well on grass a chance to earn a few more points. The crunch between Wimbledon and French is too quick, as this year Nole and Roger didn't play a single grass tourney other than Wimby, give an extra week, and you give guys a week after the French to rest, everyone will play Queens, and then you still have a week after Queens to rest before Wimbledon.

 

[Gasolina]

^^^^^
Yes but I think part of Wimbledon's prestige is that god-awfully demanding schedule.

I may be wrong, but some old timers might say that creating a more favorable schedule would undermine the accomplishments of past players who swept FO and WB.

 

[TTMR]

I think it's time to bring back wood as a tournament surface. That will speed things up.

 

[Bryan Swartz]

At the lower levels(Futures and Challengers), clay events are a lot MORE prevalent, around 60-70% of the events IIRC.

I agree totally with the point that there isn't too many clay events, but there aren't enough -- closer to a 50-50 split with hardcourt would make more sense.

 

[Lsmkenpo]

Another LMAO on making the game more one dimensional. The USTA players don't exactly have crazy variety. Harrison seems to have some potential but the rest are ballbashers/big serves. Blake,Roddick,Fish,Isner,Querrey aren't exactly renowned for their variety. They either hit hard or serve hard.

None of these players have anything to do with the USTA, All of them developed their game through private training not a USTA program.

The USTA has never developed a single pro player of significant note in their entire history.

 

[FedExpress 333]

^^^

True that.

I think that more grass tournaments would be awesome!

 

[West Coast Ace]

While it would have been cool to see Almagro, Youzhny, Ivan, Stan, Cilic, et al. in LA last week, I have no problem with the 'summer clay' season. If the tournament directors can sign up sponsors and sell tickets, it's fine. And the players are in this to maximize their careers - so if they think they can earn more ATP points and cash on the clay, instead of getting ready for the US Open on hard, no problem.

I just wish Tennis Channel would show the EU tournaments live and ESPN would either show the men's or women's and if they choose to show the women's, let TC show the men in LA live.