Design the tennis season

I definitely applaud the major tournaments putting roofs on their showpiece courts. I think RG is the only hold-out there. A ton of matches have been negatively impacted by rain and/or other weather. In my opinion, the inclement weather can be left to football. I don't think that's a variable tennis needs.
I'm think RG will have a roof by 2018, so weather won't be a problem there anymore.
Now if only all the majors had night matches too. Night tennis makes the tournament a whole lot more enjoyable if you ask me.
 
Hard to imagine USO w/out the nighttime thrillfests. Something about those raucous matches under the lights in NYC will always be synonymous with Fed for me :)

 
Fast hard and grass all year long.
Absolutely. Speed it up across the board. Throw the baseline bashers a bone, and leave a few clay tourneys I guess. But otherwise, reverse the slow-death-of-tennis and "cut the sandpaper."
 
Tennis has an absurd schedule. It's so mind boggling it defies common sense. Seriously , a 1 month off season?

One. Month. Off season.

Scrap Madrid, Bercy, Cincy and the Asian Swing. Move the Open to early August and end the season immediately with the year end championships no later than early September. Schedule all events around the idea that the Open and YEC end the season before fall hits. And give players the chance for a break and fans a chance to miss tennis.
 
Tennis has an absurd schedule. It's so mind boggling it defies common sense. Seriously , a 1 month off season?

One. Month. Off season.

Scrap Madrid, Bercy, Cincy and the Asian Swing. Move the Open to early August and end the season immediately with the year end championships no later than early September. Schedule all events around the idea that the Open and YEC end the season before fall hits. And give players the chance for a break and fans a chance to miss tennis.
Good post man. :)

I'm not saying that I necessarily agree with all of what you've said, but this is just what we need for an interesting discussion.
Much better than the usual "Make everything fast", which would end up just as bad as the current ATP mantra "make everything slow".

Most sports do have a shorter season, and perhaps it would be a good idea to shorten the season to make tennis less of an endurance/fitness competition like it currently is.

I don't think Paris or the Asian Swing really serve any purpose other than to fill in the calendar.
No-one's going to miss a couple of HC Masters, they're a dime a dozen anyway.
 
Tennis has an absurd schedule. It's so mind boggling it defies common sense. Seriously , a 1 month off season?

One. Month. Off season.

Scrap Madrid, Bercy, Cincy and the Asian Swing. Move the Open to early August and end the season immediately with the year end championships no later than early September. Schedule all events around the idea that the Open and YEC end the season before fall hits. And give players the chance for a break and fans a chance to miss tennis.
A few thoughts on this though. 1) Individual sport. So it's not as if it is a league coordinating a bunch of teams, with all of those inherent complications. The players make their own schedules and (since they do not generally win all of their tournaments) end up with more free time than it would appear; 2) The money is staggering at the very top, but some of the players on the 2nd tier would not appreciate the loss of some events; 3) Even in the "off season", many of the top players choose to continue playing in exhibition tournaments to pad their bank accounts. They opt to keep playing; 4) I don't think hardcore fans of the sport really have any complaints about year-round play!
 
9 Month Season,

Starts off with slowest surface and ramps up through the season.

2 masters, plus 1 GS per surface over a two month period. So start of each month Masters, GS starts 2 weeks in to second month.

Go from Clay, to slow HC, to Fast HC to Grass (would prefer a 4th surface but carpet sucks).

YEC in 9th month, along with last masters, surface for both by vote of top 8 players, weighting vote by ranking, i.e 1st rank worth 8 points, 2nd 7 points and so on.

Bigger differences between the surfaces in terms of speed, bounce etc would be a must too so that more variety of play is present. (S&v back in the day wasn't good despite what the oldies keep saying. Everything from racquets, to conditions favoured it and thus the net player, now with new string and racquet tech i think it would be balanced even if you sped some of the surfaces back up, and besides slower courts surface would still favour baseline, faster would favour all court/net play.) This would provide more variety in who is successful and what styles of play would be present.

The increase from slow to fast would allow players to adapt to different speeds and the footwork requirements of different surfaces so you wouldn't get the 15 injuries you seem to get at Wimbledon these days.

Time off would allow players to develop more.

The other tournaments would be played by lower ranked players creating a more sustainable scene for those ranked outside of the top 100.

Not very practical but probably ideal for the reasons above, however good luck moving surfaces and tournaments time slots etc with people who cling onto something significantly less optimal for the sake of 'history'.
 
If you had the total power and control - how would you design the tennis season - dates, surfaces, tournaments etc.

My go:

December/January - No tennis

Early February - AO warmup tournaments - Auckland, Brisbane etc - on Medium Hard court (NOT Slow hardcourt)

Late February - AO on Medium Hard Court (NOT Slow hardcourt)

March - Indian Wells/Miami on Medium Hard Court (NOT Slowhardcourt)

April to Mid-May - Monte Carlo/Rome (ONLY 2 Masters 1000's on clay) and other small clay court tournaments

Mid-May-End of May - French Open

(4 week gap between end of FO and beginning of Wimbledon achieved by making FO 1 week earlier - making for 6-7 week grass court season)

Early June - Grass Warmup events including Masters 1000 Grass event on East Coast of US - 'US Grass Court Championship'

Late June - Wimbledon

July-Late Aug - US Open series - 2 Masters 1000 events - Canada/Cincinatti (played on Medium-Fast Hard court)

late Aug-Early Sept - US Open

Oct-mid Nov - Indoor series - 2 Masters 1000 events - indoor - medium-fast hard court (not slow)

Last Nov - WTF (medium-fast indoor hard - NOT medium Slow hard)

What about you? Design your own tennis year.

Nice agree totally

Now implement it dude :)

Lol
 
12 month season, no obligation to play any tournament ever.

Clay first
Slow hard court second
Grass (real grass season) third
Fast hard court fourth

No more Davis cup

No mixing of courts, once we move to a different surface there is no going back. Courts and balls get faster as season goes on to help prevent injuries and shorten play.

WTF is final tournament of the season, hosted in a different city around the world with a different surface every year.

No coaches in the stands

No let’s on serve

No lines men, only shot spot
 
I would move the N American hard court season to follow the French Open, and push the grass court season to the late summer/early fall in order to avoid all the rain in June. Then indoors in the fall/winter, including carpet.
 
How about the surface is randomly selected before each tournament with a probability equal to the natural rate of occurrence of the surface among all tennis courts? Or perhaps a simple 33% rate?

Or

The schedule for the whole year is randomly determined each year at the beginning of the year?

And

Some tournaments are played like ATP finals for a qualifying bracket to determine the final e.g. 16, from the final 16 onwards it is single elimination?

Or

Some tournaments are played completely round robin, the winner is the player with the best final record?
 
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