Sustainability of Two-Week Masters Tournaments -- Is the calendar too packed?

[tkramer15]

I have some real concerns with the increase in draw size and duration of Masters tournaments in Madrid and Rome, as well as the planned future expansion of the tournaments in Canada and Cincinnati (which sadly may become Charlotte).

I get it -- More players = more matches = more sessions = more money. The expanded draws enable direct entry for players ranked roughly 45ish to 85ish. In the past, for 56 player draws, the cutoff would be right around #45, depending of course on withdrawals. So yes, it's certainly positive to give those players a larger piece of the pie and a chance to significantly boost their ranking.

With all of that said, isn't the calendar already too packed? Back-to-back two-week Masters tournaments followed by a one-week "break" and then a two-week grand slam. With all of the complaints of burnout and various health concerns, the ATP and WTA decided that this was the prudent move?

While lower-ranked players will surely find these opportunities to be potential boons, it would seem that higher-ranked players who view themselves as legitimate slam contenders would not be pleased. After seven-plus months of action, who will want to play deep into both the Canada and Cincinnati (maybe Charlotte) draws in hot, humid weather with the US Open almost immediately following? To make this schedule work, Canada would have to begin one week after Wimbledon ends, which seems nuts.

In my view, it seems like the ATP/WTA believe that this will boost the profile of their elite tournaments and give them more of a slam feel. Perhaps they think that they can even cut into some of the slams' stranglehold amongst casual fans. In reality, I feel like it may have nearly the opposite effect.

What do you think?

 

[BeatlesFan]

Many threads about this previously. Most of us hate the two week format. Rome or IW can get away with it, but Madrid? Paris in the fall? Give me a break!

 

[Mustard]

Unfortunately, they are motivated by money rather than player welfare or fan wishes. Using that logic, more tournaments (including small events) = more money.

 

[tkramer15]

Many threads about this previously. Most of us hate the two week format. Rome or IW can get away with it, but Madrid? Paris in the fall? Give me a break!

Sorry for duplicating previous posts. I searched "two week Masters" but somehow that didn't result in any current threads.

 

[Raz11]

Does this help the players outside the top 50? Gives them entrance to a 1000 with more than double the prize money of 1st round in a 250. Means rather than playing two 250, they can just play one 1000 to make the same prize money with potentially lower costs to them as well.

 

[Milanez82]

Its at the cost of smaller tournaments which are struggling anyway so its a pretty bad strategy to support tennis. Basically big fish getting bigger.

 

[pj80]

I dont mind IW and Mia....but Rome and Madrid seem unnecessary

 

[Subway Tennis]

It’s a very interesting discussion to be having, and there are definitely arguments for and against giving more prominence and time to Masters 1000 tournaments.

On a negative note, sometimes it seems like when an event gets “stretched out” it doesn’t actually create more tennis, just fluff. You end up with more sessions but the sessions themselves get a bit emptier, and you don’t end up with more good matches.

Conversely, there is a (justified) fear at the moment that tennis is so majors-obsessed that the game is limping from one major to the next, with interest dropping substantially for big parts of the season. Tennis wants an engaged audience staying with them the whole season and they just don’t get that.

The theory may be that the longer they make each mandatory event, the longer they can keep all the best players in the world together at a single event, with the best facilities and fan experience (on TV and at the venue) and try to get the same level of engagement they get at majors.

From a players standpoint I guess they would be weighing up the benefits of extending the draw size at events where they get better facilities and prize money VS losing smaller events where they have an easier field and a more diverse option of which tournament they can base themselves at.

For smaller tournaments, it’s hard to see any benefit at all. Most smaller tournaments are already not making money and the potential is there for many fantastic and unique events to disappear completely from the calendar.

Overall I would support the idea of extending masters if it helps their status and the quality of the events so that we no longer have an obsession with majors, but it’s hard to see how it would be done without wreaking havoc on the smaller events that are a very unique part of the Men’s and Women’s world tours.

 

[RelentlessAttack]

It's extremely boring to have 2 week masters tournaments especially with the crap quality of matches we have now, and no BO5 finals.

 

[tkramer15]

Conversely, there is a (justified) fear at the moment that tennis is so majors-obsessed that the game is limping from one major to the next, with interest dropping substantially for big parts of the season. Tennis wants an engaged audience staying with them the whole season and they just don’t get that.

The theory may be that the longer they make each mandatory event, the longer they can keep all the best players in the world together at a single event, with the best facilities and fan experience (on TV and at the venue) and try to get the same level of engagement they get at majors.

From a players standpoint I guess they would be weighing up the benefits of extending the draw size at events where they get better facilities and prize money VS losing smaller events where they have an easier field and a more diverse option of which tournament they can base themselves at.

For smaller tournaments, it’s hard to see any benefit at all. Most smaller tournaments are already not making money and the potential is there for many fantastic and unique events to disappear completely from the calendar.

Overall I would support the idea of extending masters if it helps their status and the quality of the events so that we no longer have an obsession with majors, but it’s hard to see how it would be done without wreaking havoc on the smaller events that are a very unique part of the Men’s and Women’s world tours.

You summarized my thoughts perfectly. "The potential is there for many fantastic and unique events to disappear completely from the calendar."

Exactly. As I alluded to above, if Canada and Cincy become two-week events, there's essentially no space for anything else to exist during July and August. From what I've read, the Washington D.C. 500 event isn't going away, but when would it be played? The week immediately following Wimbledon!? The week in between the end of Cincy and the start of the Open? Either option seems ludicrous.

What would become of the traditional European summer clay tournaments such as Bastad, Gstaad, Kitzbuhel, Umag and the 500 event in Hamburg? Even historical spring tournaments like Monte Carlo, which remains a Masters, and Barcelona would seem to be severely devalued. Estoril? Munich? May as well turn them into Challengers.

Casual fans will say "So what? Those events are meaningless." I cannot disagree more. I've long felt that a significant part of the ATP/WTA's intrigue is rooted in its diverse array of tournaments, both large and small, all over the world. I'm old school to a fault, but it saddens me to give in to this casual fan culture of short attention spans, instant gratification and glitz and glamour. Some of this same mindset is clearly involved in the sad (seemingly inevitable) move of the Western & Southern Open from Cincinnati to Charlotte.

 

[insideguy]

Its kind of ironic what some are saying I dont disagree. But most of this board only cares about the majors. Thats how they judge everything. These tournaments are attempting to increase interest in not just those 4. For the casual tennis fan? It doesn't make a difference if these things are one or two weeks long. For you avid fans? Well most of you never want any change and place all the importance to a tennis career on majors anyway. Its a lose - lose situation.

 

[Subway Tennis]

Its kind of ironic what some are saying I dont disagree. But most of this board only cares about the majors. Thats how they judge everything. These tournaments are attempting to increase interest in not just those 4. For the casual tennis fan? It doesn't make a difference if these things are one or two weeks long. For you avid fans? Well most of you never want any change and place all the importance to a tennis career on majors anyway. Its a lose - lose situation.

Agree. It’s an incredibly tough situation.

I would much prefer if the tennis calendar was more like it was in the seventies, where there were more big events where the top players were playing each other and the atmosphere was as intense as in majors. But tennis is totally different to what it was back then in terms of how many stakeholders are controlling the game and where the money is coming from.

I can see why they are pushing the m1000 because these are the closest current tournaments to majors in terms of prestige and mandatory attendance by players from both tours at the one event.

I would like to see more tournaments get close to the majors in importance but like @tkramer15 has mentioned, lengthening m1000 might not be the way to go. Making more calendar space for m1000 Is going to push a lot of unique tournaments off the calendar.

It’s definitely a worthwhile discussion to have. I think one thing the pandemic taught us was that the tennis calendar is probably able to be changed more easily than we previously thought with events shuffling around a lot. But getting the balance right and not screwing things up even more with all the different stakeholders in tennis is the tough part.

 

[PMChambers]

Case by case, make 1500 event for Male/Female with 128 draw over two weeks see how it goes and if the $$$ are there.
I'd push IW 2 weeks. But it'll need more $$$ and more eyes.

 

[tkramer15]

Its kind of ironic what some are saying I dont disagree. But most of this board only cares about the majors. Thats how they judge everything. These tournaments are attempting to increase interest in not just those 4. For the casual tennis fan? It doesn't make a difference if these things are one or two weeks long. For you avid fans? Well most of you never want any change and place all the importance to a tennis career on majors anyway. Its a lose - lose situation.

To me, the incredibly narrow-minded focus on just the slams is a product of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic's otherworldly success. Particularly as they aged and started playing more limited schedules, the Big Three effectively made other events irrelevant because everyone knew that each was truly only interested in the slams. The grand slam "race" and GOAT debate have dominated tennis headlines for years now, leading more and more casual and even dedicated fans to care less about other events (even if those events still featured strong fields).

Perhaps Alcaraz, Medvedev, Rune, or others can follow in the Big Three's footsteps, but it seems incredibly unlikely that we'll see anyone do what Fed, Rafa and Novak have done. Hence, this ultra-narrow slam focus is unlikely to make as much sense moving into the future. And this is likely why the ATP and WTA, which is now without Serena, decided to boost their marquee events in hopes of cutting into the slams a bit. To pull off these expansive "mini-slam" tournaments, many other events with historical importance will be further reduced in prominence or eliminated altogether. In my view, that's really poor.

Once Djokovic fades and leaves the sport, it feels like the field may return to something closer to the way it was in the '90s. Sampras was the unquestioned alpha for most of the decade. Agassi may have been a clear #2 when he was interested and fit. Courier had his three-ish year run at the start of the decade. But overall, the field was pretty open. A lot players were in play to win big tournaments. Things shifted every couple of years. New genuine threats were continually emerging.

Unlike many on this board, this is why I take such a big picture, full body of work view to a player's career. While it makes some sense to reduce the Djokovic-Federer-Nadal GOAT debate to the grand slam race, in most other situations, such a simplistic analysis is woefully inadequate. The ATP and WTA are much much larger than just Djokovic-Federer-Nadal-Serena.

I'm ok with change if it makes sense. Cramming consecutive two-week Masters events into the period leading up to the French Open doesn't make sense. Far worse is scheduling back-to-back two-week Masters tourneys in the brief period between the end of Wimbledon and the start of the US Open. Yes, the two-week events would afford days off, but this schedule would seem to be absurdly restrictive and taxing. I believe it will backfire badly.

 

[DSH]

Its at the cost of smaller tournaments which are struggling anyway so its a pretty bad strategy to support tennis. Basically big fish getting bigger.

How long is the term in the ATP presidency?

 

[socallefty]

The ATP needs to market top juniors, top young players at the Challenger/Futures levels and more of the ATP players below the age of 25 ranked in the top 100 of the world who are seen as future elite players. If those players become stars in the eyes of the public, then there will be a demand for small tournaments where they are going to do well. Instead the ATP markets 5-10 players at best and then get stuck with public interest only in the top tournaments like Slams and Masters 1000 tournaments that the Top 5 players take seriously.

How many of us know the names of the recent Junior Slam champions, young players doing very well on the Challenger /Futures levels, top young players ranked between 50-100 etc or get excited about watching them play? It is a marketing problem. Big tournaments attract casual fans while small tournaments attract more serious fans of the sport. It seems like the ATP, USTA etc. are all chasing casual fans and ignoring serous tennis fans.

 

[tkramer15]

Th ATP needs to market top juniors, top young players at the Challenger/Futures levels and more of the ATP players below the age of 25 ranked in the top 100 of the world who are seen as future elite players. If those players become stars in the eyes of the public, then there will be a demand for small tournaments where they are going to do well. Instead the ATP markets 5-10 players at best and then get stuck with public interest only in the top tournaments like Slams and Masters 1000 tournaments that the Top 5 players take seriously.

How many of us know the names of the recent Junior Slam champions, young players doing very well on the Challenger /Futures levels, top young players ranked between 50-100 etc or get excited about watching them play? It is a marketing problem. Big tournaments attract casual fans while small tournaments attract more serious fans of the sport. It seems like the ATP, USTA etc. are all chasing casual fans and ignoring serous tennis fans.

Outstanding post. Really spot on. Sadly, it feels like this narrow-minded, short attention span approach mirrors what our society has largely become. I understand that things change, and that some effort has to be made to "get with the times." But for the reasons you've so perfectly outlined, this new strategy seems to be counter-intuitive.