What has happened to the ATP? (Summary of recent months)

Aussie Darcy

Aussie Darcy

Bionic Poster
2017 really hasn't been great for majority of the ATP tour. It's been fantastic for Federer and Nadal but at the smaller events, it's been abysmal. Let's take a look at the last few weeks and months for example.

For the first time in 8 years we had a Lucky Loser win a title (Rublev - ATP250 Umag), then the following week we had ANOTHER Lucky Loser win a title, this time an ATP500 (Leo Mayer in Hamburg).

List of Lucky Loser title winners in the past 27 years,only 6... 2 within 2 weeks isn't great..
DGAu3DkXYAAio8W.jpg


More embarrassingly, Rublev lost in qualifying in Umag to the 174th ranked Balazs yet went on to win the title beating players ranked #78, #149, #27 (Fognini), #412 & #34 (Lorenzi).

Even worse, Leo Mayer lost in qualifying in Hamburg to the 924th ranked Molleker (yes 924!!) yet went on to win the title beating players ranked #24 (Ramos), #54, #55, 81 & 101. This was an ATP500 final between #101 Florian Mayer and #138 Leo Mayer. Reads more like a challenger final than a ATP500 final.

Currently the ATP500 Citi Open is underway in Washington. We've already had a number of top players lose to low ranked players. Defending champ, 6th seed and world #22 Monfils lost to 200th ranked Yuki Bhambri. 100th ranked Pella beat 12th seed and world #26 Mischa Zverev, 225th ranked Tommy Paul defeated 7th seed and world #17 Pouille in straight sets, 106th ranked Tennys Sandgren beat 10th seed and world #20 Kyrgios..

Meanwhile, in Los Cabos.. defending champ and world #31 Karlovic lost to #126 qualifier Halys. 165th ranked Millot beat 6th seed and world #38 Verdasco.

And in Kitzhubel... top seed and world #27 Cuevas lost to #156 Ofner. Oh and 6 of the other 7 seeds also lost either 1st round or 2nd round. Just 1 seed in the QF out of a possible 8. Not great.

Last week, Yannick Hanfmann, a qualifier then ranked #170 in the world made the final in Gstaad. Week before that, Matt Ebden, a qualifier then ranked #249 in the world made the final in Newport.

Wimbledon wasn't exactly fantastic either. 4 of the top 5 (Stan, Murray, Nadal and Novak) all failed to make the SF and all (but Nadal) ended up getting injuries which has seen them pull out of tournaments or in Novak's case, the entire year. We had a boring final and 2 boring SF's as well.

Before Wimbledon we had Queens where the 2x defending champ and world number 1 Murray lost to a Lucky Loser who had won just 13 main draw career matches and was ranked #90 in the world. 2nd seed Wawrinka also lost 1R (although it was to eventual champ Lopez) and 3rd seed Raonic lost 1R to Kokkinakis who was ranked #698 in the world and was only playing his 4th ATP tournament in 18 months.

At the French Open, we saw the world #2 and defending champ Djokovic get thrashed by Thiem in the QF, a player he himself had thrashed a few weeks earlier 6-1 6-0 in Rome. The Rome champion, Zverev who was the first 1990's player to win a Masters, failed to capitalize on the win and lost his next match (which was at the French Open) where he fell 1R to Verdasco. The final and SF's of the French were also pretty boring.

Week before Rome Masters was the Madrid Open where the number 1 and defending finalist Murray lost to another Lucky Loser, Borna Coric in the 3R. (Coric lost in qualifying to #80 Kukushkin but went on to make the QF). Oh and Coric has now lost 6 of his 7 matches since that QF loss to Thiem..

Seems this is really the year of the Lucky Loser. Two Lucky Losers have won a title and two Lucky Losers have defeated the world number 1. What next? A good slam run? Probably will happen at the USO.

Anyway, now with Djokovic out for the year, Murray's health in question, Stan withdrawing from the next two Masters, who knows what's going to happen next?

So what's going on? I'd say it's the changing of the guard except that out of 46 titles this year (not including last week), 23 of them were from 30+ players and 30 of them were 28+. Only 10 of the 36 were 25 or under and just 2 were in their teens.

(Here's a list of the first 43 title winners for 2017 (not including last weeks Fognini, Isner & Mayer who are all 30+)
DFcXWjcXUAIMx61.jpg:large


Additionally, of the 12 slam SFists this year, 10 of the 12 were 28+, 8 of them were 30+. Just two were under the age of 26 (Dimitrov - AO and Thiem - RG).

So it's not a changing of the guard, just that everyone doing well on the tour is around 30+ which isn't promising for the future of the game.
(Long thread over).
 
Fortunately for us, there's a way to spin that positively. There you go:

"Look, the level in men's tennis is so high that even guys ranked in the 100's are gunning for titles and players ranked 200+ are a threat to top guns everywhere."

See? :D

Aussie Darcy said:
The final and SF's of the French were also pretty boring.
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I take exception to this, though. The Wawrinka-Murray SF was just about the only good match at RG this year, and it was really fine, too. Much, much better than any of the 126 other matches in the men's draw (and the 127 women matches).
 
Nice summary of events there. Who knows, 15 years from now, history will tell, 2017 was a major year in terms of ending the Big 4 era and the real rush in of the next gen. Let's see....
 
merlinpinpin said:
Fortunately for us, there's a way to spin that positively. There you go:

"Look, the level in men's tennis is so high that even guys ranked in the 100's are gunning for titles and players ranked 200+ are a threat to top guns everywhere."

See? :D



I take exception to this, though. The Wawrinka-Murray SF was just about the only good match at RG this year, and it was really fine, too. Much, much better than any of the 126 other matches in the men's draw (and the 127 women matches).
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Hey that's the same excuse i've been trying to use for the WTA for recent years and yet noone has bought it ;) Although I don't believe the WTA have ever had a lucky loser win a title, I think just two women lucky losers have gone on to make the final but didn't win (Czink in 2005, Vandeweghe in 2012).

And I completely forgot about Wawrinka/Murray SF, for some reason I thought that was a QF. But the other ones were horrendously boring. I want my time back for the Federer/Cilic Wimbledon final. Watching a man cry wasn't what I signed up for.
 
Yawn ! Men's tennis has been bad since 2014. This is not a problem with 2017.

Fedal winning everything in sight is good for their fans but not so much to promote the sport with next generation .

Djokorray being injured is further adding fuel to fire

Dmitrov and KYrgios started the year well but have lost their way. RAonic and Nishikori are always injured leaving Thiem and Zverev as the only hope.
 
1. The lucky losers run came in the least attended part of the season - the euro clay after Wimbledon. Top 20 players are absent and its logical to have more magic/unexpected runs. Knowing that you a huge fan of the WTA, its like making general conclusions from the sporadic chinese tournaments in the calendar in which the participants are 80% "challenger" type of level + Jankovic and the top ranked asians.

2. There is nothing embarassing to lose against someone ranked between number 100-200. These guys are still top pros with their own coaches. Often enough, the main reason for them not being rank higher is the lack of money, luck and mental strenght. In terms of tennis quality they can make damage. I cant prove it but I am pretty certain that if you took 5 players ranked around number 150 and give them a direct entry for all ATP 250/500/1000/2000 tournaments in a year, most of them would collect around 10-25 wins, enough to be ranked around number 50. As for the losses, Mayer lost to 16 years old german kid - how is that a suprise that he is ranked 950?! When Nadal won his first match in Mallorca, he was ranked 700+!

3.Washington/Los Cabos early upsets- Karlovic is hardly a good example, he can lose/win against anyone given the day. Verdasco at 34 is hardly a top player to be expected to make deep runs. In Washington - Monfils is a bad loss but he is known for his behaviour, Kyrgios lost because of injury and that it is. You can be certain that all the top players would reach the SF in two days. Given the fact that Cuevas missed the grass season, probably he is coming back from injury and collecting some match practice.

4. Wimbledon was "OK" before the final. Cilic/Federer were expected to reach the SF's and Andy Murray would have also done it if for some reason he didnt run out of gass(probably an injury). So that would have made 3/4 expected SF before the tournament. The other one was Nadal and he lost in the most epic match in the event, nothing to be ashamed of. I agree that the clay/grass part of the season was far from great but still we saw the rise of Goffin, Thiem and Zverev not that bad at all. Not to mention that the Australian summer was 10/10 in terms of entertainment.

5. About the "Old guard" winning most of the titles - its a global effect on all sports. Atletes in there 30's reach new highs in soccer, basketball, NFL and tennis. It has more to do with the advance medicine than the lack of talent from below. A 35 years old player has huge experience and when he can run as much as a 20 years old, how much the later can do ?! Just look at the WTA, Serena is still the best at 36. Venus was a top 30 player for a 5 years period and now suddenly she is top 8 at 37?! I mean if she somehow win the Us Open or even reaches the final, she would be in a good spot to end the year as number 1 out of nowhere ... You have a first time SF since Wimbledon 13, more than half of those have not backed and potentialy would never back that result again(excluding Ostapenko, including Ribarikova)
 
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As long as Federer keeps winning I don't really care about what next/lost gen are doing.

Tennis will sort itself out in a couple of years after big 4 are finished anyway.
 
tacou said:
This has been such a weird season on the men's side. I love both Rafa and Roger so it has been great, but outside of them it's been an absolute train wreck.
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It's been like this for the past like 3 or four years though ,

The the MurDjokDal generation of also rans is declining (Tsonga, Berdych Monfils etc) , Cilic and Wawa are inconsistent , Lost Boys are still lost and Next Gen hasn't done anything other than the odd scalp


So here we are
 
SLD76 said:
It's been like this for the past like 3 or four years though
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Not sure how you can say this season is like the past few years at all. Federer hadn't won a major in 5 years and he is now dominating, followed closely by Nadal, who was also looking half out the door in recent seasons and had a 2.5 year major drought. Prevailing opinion was neither would win one again.

Similarly, the last few years have been defined by Djokovic dominance and Murray the sidekick. They are both nonfactors this season, and Djokovic has pulled the plug altogether.

Standing by my opinion that 2017 has been quite curious.
 
Aussie Darcy said:
Hey that's the same excuse i've been trying to use for the WTA for recent years and yet noone has bought it ;) Although I don't believe the WTA have ever had a lucky loser win a title, I think just two women lucky losers have gone on to make the final but didn't win (Czink in 2005, Vandeweghe in 2012).

And I completely forgot about Wawrinka/Murray SF, for some reason I thought that was a QF. But the other ones were horrendously boring. I want my time back for the Federer/Cilic Wimbledon final. Watching a man cry wasn't what I signed up for.
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Well, at least not until after the end of the match anyway! ;)
 
Aussie Darcy said:
2017 really hasn't been great for majority of the ATP tour. It's been fantastic for Federer and Nadal but at the smaller events, it's been abysmal. Let's take a look at the last few weeks and months for example.

For the first time in 8 years we had a Lucky Loser win a title (Rublev - ATP250 Umag), then the following week we had ANOTHER Lucky Loser win a title, this time an ATP500 (Leo Mayer in Hamburg).

List of Lucky Loser title winners in the past 27 years,only 6... 2 within 2 weeks isn't great..
DGAu3DkXYAAio8W.jpg


More embarrassingly, Rublev lost in qualifying in Umag to the 174th ranked Balazs yet went on to win the title beating players ranked #78, #149, #27 (Fognini), #412 & #34 (Lorenzi).

Even worse, Leo Mayer lost in qualifying in Hamburg to the 924th ranked Molleker (yes 924!!) yet went on to win the title beating players ranked #24 (Ramos), #54, #55, 81 & 101. This was an ATP500 final between #101 Florian Mayer and #138 Leo Mayer. Reads more like a challenger final than a ATP500 final.

Currently the ATP500 Citi Open is underway in Washington. We've already had a number of top players lose to low ranked players. Defending champ, 6th seed and world #22 Monfils lost to 200th ranked Yuki Bhambri. 100th ranked Pella beat 12th seed and world #26 Mischa Zverev, 225th ranked Tommy Paul defeated 7th seed and world #17 Pouille in straight sets, 106th ranked Tennys Sandgren beat 10th seed and world #20 Kyrgios..

Meanwhile, in Los Cabos.. defending champ and world #31 Karlovic lost to #126 qualifier Halys. 165th ranked Millot beat 6th seed and world #38 Verdasco.

And in Kitzhubel... top seed and world #27 Cuevas lost to #156 Ofner. Oh and 6 of the other 7 seeds also lost either 1st round or 2nd round. Just 1 seed in the QF out of a possible 8. Not great.

Last week, Yannick Hanfmann, a qualifier then ranked #170 in the world made the final in Gstaad. Week before that, Matt Ebden, a qualifier then ranked #249 in the world made the final in Newport.

Wimbledon wasn't exactly fantastic either. 4 of the top 5 (Stan, Murray, Nadal and Novak) all failed to make the SF and all (but Nadal) ended up getting injuries which has seen them pull out of tournaments or in Novak's case, the entire year. We had a boring final and 2 boring SF's as well.

Before Wimbledon we had Queens where the 2x defending champ and world number 1 Murray lost to a Lucky Loser who had won just 13 main draw career matches and was ranked #90 in the world. 2nd seed Wawrinka also lost 1R (although it was to eventual champ Lopez) and 3rd seed Raonic lost 1R to Kokkinakis who was ranked #698 in the world and was only playing his 4th ATP tournament in 18 months.

At the French Open, we saw the world #2 and defending champ Djokovic get thrashed by Thiem in the QF, a player he himself had thrashed a few weeks earlier 6-1 6-0 in Rome. The Rome champion, Zverev who was the first 1990's player to win a Masters, failed to capitalize on the win and lost his next match (which was at the French Open) where he fell 1R to Verdasco. The final and SF's of the French were also pretty boring.

Week before Rome Masters was the Madrid Open where the number 1 and defending finalist Murray lost to another Lucky Loser, Borna Coric in the 3R. (Coric lost in qualifying to #80 Kukushkin but went on to make the QF). Oh and Coric has now lost 6 of his 7 matches since that QF loss to Thiem..

Seems this is really the year of the Lucky Loser. Two Lucky Losers have won a title and two Lucky Losers have defeated the world number 1. What next? A good slam run? Probably will happen at the USO.

Anyway, now with Djokovic out for the year, Murray's health in question, Stan withdrawing from the next two Masters, who knows what's going to happen next?

So what's going on? I'd say it's the changing of the guard except that out of 46 titles this year (not including last week), 23 of them were from 30+ players and 30 of them were 28+. Only 10 of the 36 were 25 or under and just 2 were in their teens.

(Here's a list of the first 43 title winners for 2017 (not including last weeks Fognini, Isner & Mayer who are all 30+)
DFcXWjcXUAIMx61.jpg:large


Additionally, of the 12 slam SFists this year, 10 of the 12 were 28+, 8 of them were 30+. Just two were under the age of 26 (Dimitrov - AO and Thiem - RG).

So it's not a changing of the guard, just that everyone doing well on the tour is around 30+ which isn't promising for the future of the game.
(Long thread over).
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This isn't that surprising in Thiemerev's absence, plus Goffin not 100% (July clay weakness).:rolleyes: Geriatrics not too hot on clay so plenty of chances for upsets and NextGen who are relatively strong on the surface. Hard courts is the worst surface for the younger players. Geriatrics hang on well on grass as experience a big factor, plus strong serving.

Ofner is rolling along in Kitzbuhel this week. Kokkinakis in Los Cabos. Pouille on grass with Zverev Halle final excellent results plus good play by many NextGen on grass (Medvedev, Kokkinakis, and Rublev stood out). Thiem, Pouille, Zverev (twice) and Coric all won on clay. Player like Sock, PCB, Harrison, Dimitrov, Schwartzman, and Goffin have all found their best form this year.

With Thiem's deep runs on clay one of the best years in a long, long time for younger players. We haven't had teen winners since Cilic so this is a bumper crop. Even Tiafoe playing some really good tennis at just 18.

One thing we can agree on is that Hamburg has been and still is a joke in July.:confused:

Have seen some really excellent matches already this week:
Tiafoe vs Kokkinakis
Edmund vs Dimitrov
Ofner in general amazing in Kitzbuhel.:eek:

The future's so bright I gotta wear shades
giphy.gif
 
This is exactly the tour you get outside the Big 4. Similar results were happening in the late 90s through the early 2000s. You guys asked for parity and other players to win, well here's what that looks like.
 
Bukmeikara said:
1. The lucky losers run came in the least attended part of the season - the euro clay after Wimbledon. Top 20 players are absent and its logical to have more magic/unexpected runs. Knowing that you a huge fan of the WTA, its like making general conclusions from the sporadic chinese tournaments in the calendar in which the participants are 80% "challenger" type of level + Jankovic and the top ranked asians.

2. There is nothing embarassing to lose against someone ranked between number 100-200. These guys are still top pros with their own coaches. Often enough, the main reason for them not being rank higher is the lack of money, luck and mental strenght. In terms of tennis quality they can make damage. I cant prove it but I am pretty certain that if you took 5 players ranked around number 150 and give them a direct entry for all ATP 250/500/1000/2000 tournaments in a year, most of them would collect around 10-25 wins, enough to be ranked around number 50. As for the losses, Mayer lost to 16 years old german kid - how is that a suprise that he is ranked 950?! When Nadal won his first match in Mallorca, he was ranked 700+!

3.Washington/Los Cabos early upsets- Karlovic is hardly a good example, he can lose/win against anyone given the day. Verdasco at 34 is hardly a top player to be expected to make deep runs. In Washington - Monfils is a bad loss but he is known for his behaviour, Kyrgios lost because of injury and that it is. You can be certain that all the top players would reach the SF in two days. Given the fact that Cuevas missed the grass season, probably he is coming back from injury and collecting some match practice.

4. Wimbledon was "OK" before the final. Cilic/Federer were expected to reach the SF's and Andy Murray would have also done it if for some reason he didnt run out of gass(probably an injury). So that would have made 3/4 expected SF before the tournament. The other one was Nadal and he lost in the most epic match in the event, nothing to be ashamed of. I agree that the clay/grass part of the season was far from great but still we saw the rise of Goffin, Thiem and Zverev not that bad at all. Not to mention that the Australian summer was 10/10 in terms of entertainment.

5. About the "Old guard" winning most of the titles - its a global effect on all sports. Atletes in there 30's reach new highs in soccer, basketball, NFL and tennis. It has more to do with the advance medicine than the lack of talent from below. A 35 years old player has huge experience and when he can run as much as a 20 years old, how much the later can do ?! Just look at the WTA, Serena is still the best at 36. Venus was a top 30 player for a 5 years period and now suddenly she is top 8 at 37?! I mean if she somehow win the Us Open or even reaches the final, she would be in a good spot to end the year as number 1 out of nowhere ... You have a first time SF since Wimbledon 13, more than half of those have not backed and potentialy would never back that result again(excluding Ostapenko, including Ribarikova)
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Wow never heard so many different excuses be used at once! Ok time to break it down.

Bukmeikara said:
1. The lucky losers run came in the least attended part of the season - the euro clay after Wimbledon. Top 20 players are absent and its logical to have more magic/unexpected runs. Knowing that you a huge fan of the WTA, its like making general conclusions from the sporadic chinese tournaments in the calendar in which the participants are 80% "challenger" type of level + Jankovic and the top ranked asians.
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You're missing the point, yes these awkward clay tournaments are weaker than others but even in recent years, the ATP hadn't had a Lucky Loser win a title since 2009 yet now they have two in two weeks. Why 2017? These tournaments have always been weak but in the past we didn't have players losing in qualifying somehow go on to then win the title... And yes these tournaments lack top 20 players but both Lucky Losers still beat a player inside the top 30 on route to their titles (despite the fact that they both lost to a player ranked outside the top 150 in qualifying...).
And I wasn't going to make this WTA v ATP but since you mentioned it, despite those weak draws in the Chinese tournaments, none of them had a lucky loser win a title, or make a final, or even a SF...

Bukmeikara said:
2. There is nothing embarassing to lose against someone ranked between number 100-200. These guys are still top pros with their own coaches. Often enough, the main reason for them not being rank higher is the lack of money, luck and mental strenght. In terms of tennis quality they can make damage. I cant prove it but I am pretty certain that if you took 5 players ranked around number 150 and give them a direct entry for all ATP 250/500/1000/2000 tournaments in a year, most of them would collect around 10-25 wins, enough to be ranked around number 50. As for the losses, Mayer lost to 16 years old german kid - how is that a suprise that he is ranked 950?! When Nadal won his first match in Mallorca, he was ranked 700+!
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Ok well you might say that but many disagree, losing to players ranked 100-200 is generally not the greatest look. Tomic was doing it earlier in the year and was getting pummeled by the media for it, same for Kyrgios. The most notorious losses at tournaments are the ones that are the big upsets (Haas against Fed in Stuttgart, defending champ Monfils to an Indian i've never heard of etc..).
And the issue with Mayer losing to someone ranked 950 is because he then got a Lucky Loser spot into the main draw AND WON THE TITLE. He lost to someone ranked in the 900's yet went on to win the title beating top 200 players? It's not exactly a good look is it? Can't beat a player ranked #950 or whatever..

Bukmeikara said:
3.Washington/Los Cabos early upsets- Karlovic is hardly a good example, he can lose/win against anyone given the day. Verdasco at 34 is hardly a top player to be expected to make deep runs. In Washington - Monfils is a bad loss but he is known for his behaviour, Kyrgios lost because of injury and that it is. You can be certain that all the top players would reach the SF in two days. Given the fact that Cuevas missed the grass season, probably he is coming back from injury and collecting some match practice.
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Karlovic was the defending champ, yes he has sporadic results but it's still bad for the defending champ to lose to a player outisde the top 100 in the 1R.. no matter how you view it. Verdasco is indeed 34, when I made the point that it was embarrassing for Alex Zverev to lose to him at the French Open 1R despite him just winning the Rome Masters I was shot down because 'Verdasco is a good player', so which is it? Verdasco's 34 and hardly a top player? Or he's a top player and can beat anyone including Zverev? Therefore can I criticize Alex Zverev for losing 1R at a slam despite winning a Masters two weeks earlier? Either way, it's also not a good look for the tour.

Bukmeikara said:
5. About the "Old guard" winning most of the titles - its a global effect on all sports. A 35 years old player has huge experience and when he can run as much as a 20 years old, how much the later can do ?! Just look at the WTA, Serena is still the best at 36. Venus was a top 30 player for a 5 years period and now suddenly she is top 8 at 37?! I mean if she somehow win the Us Open or even reaches the final, she would be in a good spot to end the year as number 1 out of nowhere ... You have a first time SF since Wimbledon 13, more than half of those have not backed and potentialy would never back that result again(excluding Ostapenko, including Ribarikova)
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Funny you mention the WTA and how sport around the world is seeing older people dominate. Because, the two most recent slam champions on the women's tour are aged under 24.. RG Champ Ostapenko is 20 and Wimbledon champ Muguruza is 23. The number 1 player is Pliskova who's 25 and the number 2 player is Halep who's also 25. World number 5 Svitolina is 22.
On the men's tour 5 of the top 5 players are 30+. On the women's tour 4 of the top 5 players are 25 or under...
I'm going to disregard the Williams sisters as outliers. Serena is off tour anyway so she's not a factor and Venus is of course the massive outlier, 5 years older then the next oldest player in the top 30.


Anyway, I think my overall point stands. 2017 has been all about Federer and Nadal and then pretty much nothing much for the rest.
 
ghostofMecir said:
Why do you think the OP created this post? Denigrating the ATP Tour in order to boost the WTA IS the reason behind most of the posts I have seen from this poster. Even in this thread, the OP mentions the WTA multiple times. Who else mentions the WTA in threads about the men's game?
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There are people whose life purpose is to keep comparing both tours, compare Serena with Federer, fight for prize money as much as men, fight for scheduling , fight for show courts.
 
ghostofMecir said:
Why do you think the OP created this post? Denigrating the ATP Tour in order to boost the WTA IS the reason behind most of the posts I have seen from this poster. Even in this thread, the OP mentions the WTA multiple times. Who else mentions the WTA in threads about the men's game?
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I'd agree that there's a slant. Immediate like from me on this one because of the "depth of reporting." Significant effort went into that post, and it includes so many specifics. Even if my thinking doesn't completely align with the angle, I can certainly appreciate a detailed breakdown of a seriously flawed tour.
 
Booger said:
Aren't you mostly a WTA fan?
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No, I enjoy both tours.

ghostofMecir said:
Why do you think the OP created this post? Denigrating the ATP Tour in order to boost the WTA IS the reason behind most of the posts I have seen from this poster. Even in this thread, the OP mentions the WTA multiple times. Who else mentions the WTA in threads about the men's game?
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Wrong. But wouldn't expect any better from you. A lot of effort went in to this thread, this is not about bashing the men's tour. In fact not once in my original post did I mention the women's tour at all. I only started mentioning it when others did, do your research and go look at that yourself instead of posting ******** statements to try to portray me in a negative light.
 
FedFosterWallace said:
I'd agree that there's a slant. Immediate like from me on this one because of the "depth of reporting." Significant effort went into that post, and it includes so many specifics. Even if my thinking doesn't completely align with the angle, I can certainly appreciate a detailed breakdown of a seriously flawed tour.
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:rolleyes:
This isn't an attack on the men's tour or even a slant. I can create a "What has happened to the WTA (summary of recent months)" thread except the simple answer would be that Serena is off tour pregnant so everyone else is picking up the scraps. That's not what's happening on the men's tour and I put a lot of effort into showing the different elements and results that are happening on the men's tour. Whether it's in regards to ranking, age, Lucky Loser status etc.
 
Aussie Darcy said:
No, I enjoy both tours.


Wrong. But wouldn't expect any better from you. A lot of effort went in to this thread, this is not about bashing the men's tour. In fact not once in my original post did I mention the women's tour at all. I only started mentioning it when others did, do your research and go look at that yourself instead of posting ******** statements to try to portray me in a negative light.
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Man you are defensive. You know what you were doing, and now you're upset because you've been called out on it. Don't be--defend the WTA all you want because it makes for an interesting other side in this discussion.

Also, you really don't have any idea "what's happening on the men's tour"; you saying that you do is laughable, so drop that part. Posting a few statistics without any idea of causality is amateur stuff, even for such a poster as you.
 
tacou said:
Not sure how you can say this season is like the past few years at all. Federer hadn't won a major in 5 years and he is now dominating, followed closely by Nadal, who was also looking half out the door in recent seasons and had a 2.5 year major drought. Prevailing opinion was neither would win one again.

Similarly, the last few years have been defined by Djokovic dominance and Murray the sidekick. They are both nonfactors this season, and Djokovic has pulled the plug altogether.

Standing by my opinion that 2017 has been quite curious.
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Federer and Nadal were both struggling with injury and how to adapt their game to their declining bodies


Meanwhile Djoker and Murray were dominating the same crappy field that Fedal is dominating now during their resurgence and Murrdal's decline


Honestly, you answered your own question with your post
 
ghostofMecir said:
Man you are defensive. You know what you were doing, and now you're upset because you've been called out on it. Don't be--defend the WTA all you want because it makes for an interesting other side in this discussion.

Also, you really don't have any idea "what's happening on the men's tour"; you saying that you do is laughable, so drop that part. Posting a few statistics without any idea of causality is amateur stuff, even for such a poster as you.
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Its sad that people like you always think there's a hidden agenda behind everything but there wasn't here. And it's funny you say I don't have any idea, did I post something incorrect? Did I lie? Did I ever say that I know everything that's happening on the men's tour? No, no and no. Your lame attempts at attacking myself and my thread are failing and clearly a bunch of people disagree with you on thinking that the thread was amateur judging by some comments and likes.

Oh and when was the last time you posted a thread that created an interesting discussion which used valid points, stats and results to justify the thread? Guessing it's either been a long time or never. You're just one of those fools who go onto threads to criticise hard work because you'd be incapable of putting together an intelligent thread if your life depended on it.
 
Aussie Darcy said:
Funny you mention the WTA and how sport around the world is seeing older people dominate. Because, the two most recent slam champions on the women's tour are aged under 24.. RG Champ Ostapenko is 20 and Wimbledon champ Muguruza is 23. The number 1 player is Pliskova who's 25 and the number 2 player is Halep who's also 25. World number 5 Svitolina is 22.
On the men's tour 5 of the top 5 players are 30+. On the women's tour 4 of the top 5 players are 25 or under...
I'm going to disregard the Williams sisters as outliers. Serena is off tour anyway so she's not a factor and Venus is of course the massive outlier, 5 years older then the next oldest player in the top 30.


Anyway, I think my overall point stands. 2017 has been all about Federer and Nadal and then pretty much nothing much for the rest.
Click to expand...

Ostapenko/Muguruza are fresh air but lets not forget that Serena, Sharapova and Azarenka were absent or just returning back. Also, women use their 30's to have kids and this is the main reason why we dont have more of them inside the top 20. Pliskova is number 1 with two Master/Premier titles, if that happens on the ATP tour, you would go nuts. No mather how you put it, at 37-38 Venus Willams reached two Grand Slam finals after a very long period of declining. The things you critisize the ATP are twise as heavy one the WTA. For example, upsets are "bad" but on the WTA tour you have a new semifinalist since Wimbledon 2013 and half of those are never to be seen again. Top player Svitolina lost a match from 5-1 in the deciding set, Halep twise was two points away from becoming number 1 and failed. Wozniacki lost 5-6 finals in a row without winning a set. And I am not saying this to bash the girls just to show you that if a person wants, he can also find something to brag about. Lets just enjoy both Tours.
 
Bukmeikara said:
Ostapenko/Muguruza are fresh air but lets not forget that Serena, Sharapova and Azarenka were absent or just returning back. Also, women use their 30's to have kids and this is the main reason why we dont have more of them inside the top 20. Pliskova is number 1 with two Master/Premier titles, if that happens on the ATP tour, you would go nuts. No mather how you put it, at 37-38 Venus Willams reached two Grand Slam finals after a very long period of declining. The things you critisize the ATP are twise as heavy one the WTA. For example, upsets are "bad" but on the WTA tour you have a new semifinalist since Wimbledon 2013 and half of those are never to be seen again. Top player Svitolina lost a match from 5-1 in the deciding set, Halep twise was two points away from becoming number 1 and failed. Wozniacki lost 5-6 finals in a row without winning a set. And I am not saying this to bash the girls just to show you that if a person wants, he can also find something to brag about. Lets just enjoy both Tours.
Click to expand...
You've completel hijacked this thread and turned it into something it's not, I'm not saying one tour is better than the other. I never said anywhere on this thread that the women were doing better or that I was more interested in the WTA. A few of you have judged my past comments that support the WTA to mean that this is an attack on the ATP which it isn't. I have been watching ATP events of late, I watched matches yesterday including Kyrgios', my favourite player is male. I'm not bored of men's tennis. I just recognise that the landscape of the tour is changing and I used different results and stats to back that up.
If you'd like me to do a "What's happened to the WTA (summary of recent months)" I can, but generally no one on this forum cares about women's tennis so the thread would be a total time waster for myself.

And I never said we can't enjoy both tours. I'm still enjoying both, I just recognise a change and wanted to discuss it. Heaven forbid I divert from the boring forum crap of "who would win between Peak Laver or Peak Djokovic".
 
Aussie Darcy said:
You've completel hijacked this thread and turned it into something it's not, I'm not saying one tour is better than the other. I never said anywhere on this thread that the women were doing better or that I was more interested in the WTA. A few of you have judged my past comments that support the WTA to mean that this is an attack on the ATP which it isn't. I have been watching ATP events of late, I watched matches yesterday including Kyrgios', my favourite player is male. I'm not bored of men's tennis. I just recognise that the landscape of the tour is changing and I used different results and stats to back that up.
If you'd like me to do a "What's happened to the WTA (summary of recent months)" I can, but generally no one on this forum cares about women's tennis so the thread would be a total time waster for myself.

And I never said we can't enjoy both tours. I'm still enjoying both, I just recognise a change and wanted to discuss it. Heaven forbid I divert from the boring forum crap of "who would win between Peak Laver or Peak Djokovic".
Click to expand...

OK.

You say that you stick to the facts and have no agenda whatsoever regarding the ATP, but let's examine some of your arguments.

You point at a LL being a winner in a small tournament, but let us see who this LL is.

It is Rublev, a 19 y o bright prospect whose results this year have been phenomenal almost everywhere.

You portraying him as a lucky loser, as though luck is the only reason he is winning (and of course implying that his opponents are playing all bad) is a massive bias for no "apparent" reason.

That is one massive dent in your reasoning as far as lack of bias is concerned.

For example, I see Rublev's run as a massive positive development of the ATP.

Let's review your "research" on the second LL.

It seems that you missed a couple of important points when reviewing him :

1) it seems that the Hamburg tournament is one, where he finds his game. After all, he won it in 2014, beating in the final the clay MUG.... David Ferrer

2) a player with highest ranking of 21

3) a Davis Cup winner with Argentina in 2016

4) 2nd-4th Round at he Majors

5) a good doubles player

I will point out at several other things that point to either agenda or massive knee jerk reaction :

1) quoting Thiem's win at RG over Djokovic as part of the weak tour is laughable.

Djokovic has an injury that forced him to scrap the season and you are going to trash him for losing against a very good clay court player like Thiem?

Also, Zverev.

After the effort and the required level to win a masters on clay it is more than normal to see his level drop and get stunned by an experienced player who has other scheduling priorities and experience.

Not everyone is Nadal on clay, so lambasting him for his early loss is nothing but shortsighted.

Re Ofner, who is obviously having a spell of good form, having in mind his play at Wimbledon.

Re to your comments on upsets in R1 of multiple tournaments.

Re to your comments about several top seeds not reaching the final stages of Wimbledon, when three of them have withdrawn with injuries and Nadal has been beaten by a better player on that day (hardly a recent phenomenon as well).

Your OP is a mess.

:cool:
 
Last edited:
tennisaddict said:
Yawn ! Men's tennis has been bad since 2014. This is not a problem with 2017.

Fedal winning everything in sight is good for their fans but not so much to promote the sport with next generation .

Djokorray being injured is further adding fuel to fire

Dmitrov and KYrgios started the year well but have lost their way. RAonic and Nishikori are always injured leaving Thiem and Zverev as the only hope.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Its good for existing fans, but doesnt bring in any new ones. The crowd at Wimbledon was like geriatricts.
All the time it happens they have to stop the match because of some problem w a crowd illness. It has been going on since 2014, agree. That was about the time I started to get really desperate for some young talents.
 
Aussie Darcy said:
2017 really hasn't been great for majority of the ATP tour. It's been fantastic for Federer and Nadal but at the smaller events, it's been abysmal. Let's take a look at the last few weeks and months for example.

For the first time in 8 years we had a Lucky Loser win a title (Rublev - ATP250 Umag), then the following week we had ANOTHER Lucky Loser win a title, this time an ATP500 (Leo Mayer in Hamburg).

List of Lucky Loser title winners in the past 27 years,only 6... 2 within 2 weeks isn't great..
DGAu3DkXYAAio8W.jpg


More embarrassingly, Rublev lost in qualifying in Umag to the 174th ranked Balazs yet went on to win the title beating players ranked #78, #149, #27 (Fognini), #412 & #34 (Lorenzi).

Even worse, Leo Mayer lost in qualifying in Hamburg to the 924th ranked Molleker (yes 924!!) yet went on to win the title beating players ranked #24 (Ramos), #54, #55, 81 & 101. This was an ATP500 final between #101 Florian Mayer and #138 Leo Mayer. Reads more like a challenger final than a ATP500 final.

Currently the ATP500 Citi Open is underway in Washington. We've already had a number of top players lose to low ranked players. Defending champ, 6th seed and world #22 Monfils lost to 200th ranked Yuki Bhambri. 100th ranked Pella beat 12th seed and world #26 Mischa Zverev, 225th ranked Tommy Paul defeated 7th seed and world #17 Pouille in straight sets, 106th ranked Tennys Sandgren beat 10th seed and world #20 Kyrgios..

Meanwhile, in Los Cabos.. defending champ and world #31 Karlovic lost to #126 qualifier Halys. 165th ranked Millot beat 6th seed and world #38 Verdasco.

And in Kitzhubel... top seed and world #27 Cuevas lost to #156 Ofner. Oh and 6 of the other 7 seeds also lost either 1st round or 2nd round. Just 1 seed in the QF out of a possible 8. Not great.

Last week, Yannick Hanfmann, a qualifier then ranked #170 in the world made the final in Gstaad. Week before that, Matt Ebden, a qualifier then ranked #249 in the world made the final in Newport.

Wimbledon wasn't exactly fantastic either. 4 of the top 5 (Stan, Murray, Nadal and Novak) all failed to make the SF and all (but Nadal) ended up getting injuries which has seen them pull out of tournaments or in Novak's case, the entire year. We had a boring final and 2 boring SF's as well.

Before Wimbledon we had Queens where the 2x defending champ and world number 1 Murray lost to a Lucky Loser who had won just 13 main draw career matches and was ranked #90 in the world. 2nd seed Wawrinka also lost 1R (although it was to eventual champ Lopez) and 3rd seed Raonic lost 1R to Kokkinakis who was ranked #698 in the world and was only playing his 4th ATP tournament in 18 months.

At the French Open, we saw the world #2 and defending champ Djokovic get thrashed by Thiem in the QF, a player he himself had thrashed a few weeks earlier 6-1 6-0 in Rome. The Rome champion, Zverev who was the first 1990's player to win a Masters, failed to capitalize on the win and lost his next match (which was at the French Open) where he fell 1R to Verdasco. The final and SF's of the French were also pretty boring.

Week before Rome Masters was the Madrid Open where the number 1 and defending finalist Murray lost to another Lucky Loser, Borna Coric in the 3R. (Coric lost in qualifying to #80 Kukushkin but went on to make the QF). Oh and Coric has now lost 6 of his 7 matches since that QF loss to Thiem..

Seems this is really the year of the Lucky Loser. Two Lucky Losers have won a title and two Lucky Losers have defeated the world number 1. What next? A good slam run? Probably will happen at the USO.

Anyway, now with Djokovic out for the year, Murray's health in question, Stan withdrawing from the next two Masters, who knows what's going to happen next?

So what's going on? I'd say it's the changing of the guard except that out of 46 titles this year (not including last week), 23 of them were from 30+ players and 30 of them were 28+. Only 10 of the 36 were 25 or under and just 2 were in their teens.

(Here's a list of the first 43 title winners for 2017 (not including last weeks Fognini, Isner & Mayer who are all 30+)
DFcXWjcXUAIMx61.jpg:large


Additionally, of the 12 slam SFists this year, 10 of the 12 were 28+, 8 of them were 30+. Just two were under the age of 26 (Dimitrov - AO and Thiem - RG).

So it's not a changing of the guard, just that everyone doing well on the tour is around 30+ which isn't promising for the future of the game.
(Long thread over).
Click to expand...
If Nadal and Federer didn't have a resurgence imagine how weak the tour would be? Dimitrov, Thiem and Cilic winning majors. Lol.

@RF-18 What happened to the tour being better than ever? Lol.
 
Sabratha said:
If Nadal and Federer didn't have a resurgence imagine how weak the tour would be? Dimitrov, Thiem and Cilic winning majors. Lol.

@RF-18 What happened to the tour being better than ever? Lol.
Click to expand...

so, point is with this thread:

as soon as things get a little easier and a couple of guys are out of the way, federer sweeps everything as per usual? :D

nah j/K.

Who said TOUR is better than ever? I've been saying tennis just like every sport evolves. 2017 hasn't been that great of a year and probably the worst in terms of big matches you get to watch, general level of play but sometimes that happens. We are probably in a transition period right now, with the young guns making their assault.
 
RF-18 said:
so, point is with this thread:

as soon as things get a little easier and a couple of guys are out of the way, federer sweeps everything as per usual? :D

nah j/K.

Who said TOUR is better than ever? I've been saying tennis just like every sport evolves. 2017 hasn't been that great of a year and probably the worst in terms of big matches you get to watch, general level of play but sometimes that happens. We are probably in a transition period right now, with the young guns making their assault.
Click to expand...

AO featured some of the best matches in recent memory and certainly is the best AO since at least 5 years.

:cool:
 
RF-18 said:
so, point is with this thread:

as soon as things get a little easier and a couple of guys are out of the way, federer sweeps everything as per usual? :D

nah j/K.

Who said TOUR is better than ever? I've been saying tennis just like every sport evolves. 2017 hasn't been that great of a year and probably the worst in terms of big matches you get to watch, general level of play but sometimes that happens. We are probably in a transition period right now, with the young guns making their assault.
Click to expand...
Things have been "easier" for years. Tried telling you this is what was going to happen and you didn't listen. :D

The younger generation isn't doing much at all. Old guys still cleaning up, just not top level old guys.
 
Sabratha said:
Things have been "easier" for years. Tried telling you this is what was going to happen and you didn't listen. :D

The younger generation isn't doing much at all. Old guys still cleaning up, just not top level old guys.
Click to expand...

For the last years, no hasn't been easy at all. As a matter of fact, it is never ''easy''. Only armchair critics can say it is easy when they don't know the amount of work and talent you need to even get into the pro scene.
 
Tennis_Hands said:
AO featured some of the best matches in recent memory and certainly is the best AO since at least 5 years.

:cool:
Click to expand...

Nadal-Dimitrov was a heck of a match and probably match of the tournament, but Fed-Nadal match was nothing special in terms of level of play, all one sided sets but last set was feds comeback that was memorable and couple of long rallies and great shots.
 
RF-18 said:
Nadal-Dimitrov was a heck of a match and probably match of the tournament, but Fed-Nadal match was nothing special in terms of level of play, all one sided sets but last set was feds comeback that was memorable and couple of long rallies and great shots.
Click to expand...

Obviously we disagree on the quality of the AO final and there were many more memorable matches like Zverev - Murray, Istomin - Djokovic, Feds 5 setters etc.

:cool:
 
sportmac said:
Yep, you try and make the argument that the WTA has depth (it does) and you'll get killed! :D
Click to expand...
Not true at all. This board is almost completely united in that regard - the WTA has tremendous depth - of head cases, chokers, and shrieking.

I'm a tennis fan - I'm still seeing great matches. I enjoyed the heck out of Simon - Kohli, Delbonis - Khachanov, and even the Mayer - Mayer F in Hamburg last week. Do I wish some of these young guys would put the Ferraris and models aside and win more - sure. But there's still plenty of great tennis.
 
West Coast Ace said:
Not true at all. This board is almost completely united in that regard - the WTA has tremendous depth - of head cases, chokers, and shrieking.

I'm a tennis fan - I'm still seeing great matches. I enjoyed the heck out of Simon - Kohli, Delbonis - Khachanov, and even the Mayer - Mayer F in Hamburg last week. Do I wish some of these young guys would put the Ferraris and models aside and win more - sure. But there's still plenty of great tennis.
Click to expand...
I'm a tennis fan and I'm seeing great matches - Andreescu, Petkovic, Muguruza, Bellis, Ostapenko, ... lots of great tennis.

Thanks for proving my point.
 
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