Why no grass masters?

[octobrina10]

Spoken like a true clay chauvinist/bigot. When I took up the game more than 45 years ago, grass was supreme and dirt was a minority surface. The USTA was known as the US Lawn Tennis Association. Tennis Australia was the Australasian Lawn Tennis Association.

More than a century of grass tradition and you want to discard it like it doesn't matter. Wimbledon is our connection to tennis's long, illustrious history & tradition. We need a longer grass season, not a shorter one. I, for one, love the clay season but still see it as a minority surface -- as is grass these days.

Grass was supreme in the UK and its former colonies. By now, grass-courts have (almost) died out in the former colonies.

 

[Cashman]

Crazy to think that 3 of the 4 slams were played on grass before...

Well, the sport IS called lawn tennis.

 

[ForumMember]

Surface distribution for tournaments has to replicate distribution of surfaces across the world. We may make a case for grass masters but fact remains that overall very little tennis is played on grass worldwide. Not many growing kids have access to grass courts to learn tennis on. I can't put a number but guesstimate we wouldn't have more than 5-10% of the total tennis courts worldwide as grass courts. It'e very difficult to maintain. Most of the courts around the world are hard and then clay. Very few courts are grass. So it's only logical to have tournaments in that order.

 

[The Harkleroad]

Well, the sport IS called lawn tennis.

was?

How many places and organizations/federations still officially call it lawn tennis?

 

[Cashman]

was?

How many places and organizations/federations still officially call it lawn tennis?

Lawn tennis and real tennis are both forms of tennis, we just assume it refers to lawn tennis these days.

Pretty similar to how when someone says ‘rugby’ we assume they mean rugby union, not rugby league.

 

[Tennisgods]

Look, I get the time schedule is short, but why no Masters on grass courts? They could easily make Halle (Noventi Open) a master's. Germany needs a big tournament and grass deserves a master's if clay is going to get 3.

Queens is too small to be a master's and Wimbledon is in London already, but you could keep it a 500 and move it back a week. Yes, Stuttgart would get hurt, but it would still survive, or it could work a deal with Halle?

Just think it is fair if we are going to count total masters titles, there should at least be one on every surface.

Obviously I am a Fed fan, but I am seriously curious as to why there is not one...

100% agree. Halle should be a Masters (over Queens because Britain already has a slam on the surface.)
I hope it will happen one day, but at least grass has two prestigious 500’s at the moment.

 

[Tennisgods]

I don't like the idea of Halle being upgraded to a Masters at the expense of Queen's. It would just diminish Queen's value for players (they would obviously all prefer to play a Masters rather than a 500) when Queen's is by far the older and more prestigious warm-up event for Wimbledon.

I get the argument, but Halle is a great event with great facilities etc. Plus Britain already has Wimbledon. I think Halle should be a Masters, but then what would we do with Queens? So fair point.
But grass should have one Masters event, wherever it is.

 

[Lleytonstation]

I don't like the idea of Halle being upgraded to a Masters at the expense of Queen's. It would just diminish Queen's value for players (they would obviously all prefer to play a Masters rather than a 500) when Queen's is by far the older and more prestigious warm-up event for Wimbledon.

I get what you are saying, but I don't think it would lessen Queens, but just make the grass season as a whole a bigger deal.

You would have to move Wimbledon back one week, and move Halle one week after Queens. I don't mind this idea especially if they downgrade one of Cincinnati or Canada.

 

[hurworld]

More importantly, why aren't there more tournaments with grass on one side and clay the other, a la Battle of Surfaces?

"Grass is too expensive!" - well, now your cost is halved.

"Clay is too minor!" - well, now you get half a grass court to class it up.

 

[Towser83]

If we want to pursue surfaces' and conditions' distribution, it should be done in ALL tournament categories, not only in the cases that favor Federer.

Grand Slams: already include all surfaces.

ATP finals: only include indoor hard courts. It should rotate each year and be played some years on indoor hard, others on indoor grass and others on indoor clay.

Masters 1000: only include hard and clay. Ideally, they should incorporate 3 Masters on grass, 3 on clay and 3 on hard.

Wtf could rotate but then you'd have no big event on indoor hard (Paris master often gets skipped by players as well and would probably be scrapped if there were only 3 hc masters) so youd need to make either AO or US open and indoor HC slam.

 

[Mainad]

I get what you are saying, but I don't think it would lessen Queens, but just make the grass season as a whole a bigger deal.

You would have to move Wimbledon back one week, and move Halle one week after Queens. I don't mind this idea especially if they downgrade one of Cincinnati or Canada.

Trouble is I don't think it would matter how much they tinker with the schedule. Fact is that players looking for the best warm-up for Wimbledon are naturally going to gravitate towards a Masters rather than a 500 event. They would be unlikely to play both.

 

[Third Serve]

I would be fine with adding Halle as a master's and dropping Cincinnati to a 500, or simply dropping Paris (not needed) to a 500.

Better yet, make Cincinnati a Slam.

But what are you saying, @Third Serve, isn't it already the Real Slam?

 

[ChaelAZ]

Grass is not worthy of top players except to gather them for the exhibition social event called Wimbledon.

 

[BlueClay]

I think that the ATP grass season should be eliminated, because it's unfair competition. Only very few kids/players have an opportunity to play on grass courts in their home countries because grass courts don't exist. Grass-courts have (almost) died out in Australia & America, and the Wimbledon Centre Court is used for only two weeks a year, during the GS tournament.
https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/ind...having-no-masters.616251/page-4#post-12253659

Clay court should also be removed. In Asian countries playing clay is an luxury. I’ve only done it 2-3 times and they were all in top luxury clubs.

 

[kar_katch]

If we want to pursue surfaces' and conditions' distribution, it should be done in ALL tournament categories, not only in the cases that favor Federer.

Grand Slams: already include all surfaces.

ATP finals: only include indoor hard courts. It should rotate each year and be played some years on indoor hard, others on indoor grass and others on indoor clay.

Masters 1000: only include hard and clay. Ideally, they should incorporate 3 Masters on grass, 3 on clay and 3 on hard.

How would that disadvantage federer? It would massively help him, in that scenario he has way more masters to compete in, WTF is now on his preferred surface 2/3 of the time and on the other 1/3 is now on indoor clay once and at end of the year making it a favourable tournament for him to score titles in clay and get h2h wins vs nadal (an indoor clay touranment at the end of the year is Fed's best shot at beating nada on clay) also fed now has indoor grass which favours him vs djokovic

Nadal loses out big in this scenario as he loses hard court slams and fed gains grass slams and nadal only marginally gets a boost at WTF.... and arguably more big clay titles means more people train for clay. Also how well would rafa be able to schedule doing well in clay season in spring summer and also peaking on clay again at end of the year?

All in all feds masters count goes way up, nadals masters count goes way down, federers WTF count stays about the same, possibly lower, possibly higher

 

[SystemicAnomaly]

@Cashman

was?

How many places and organizations/federations still officially call it lawn tennis?

The LTA (UK) might be one of the few, if not the only one, still using "lawn" in its name. The ILTF & the USLTA dropped "lawn" from their names in the late 1970s and became ITF and the USTA. The LTAA (Australia) dropped the moniker in the late 1980s and became Tennis Australia.

Way back in the 1800s, the two versions of tennis were Real tennis and Lawn tennis. Lawn tennis started to dominate and became what what we now know, simply, as Tennis.

 

[The Blond Blur]

I don't know why they just make a 10th Masters 1000. It's not like it would be a big deal, much more drastic changes have occurred in tennis. The current hard and clay courts can keep their masters status. Just upgraded one of Queens or Halle and be done with it.

 

[Lleytonstation]

I don't know why they just make a 10th Masters 1000. It's not like it would be a big deal, much more drastic changes have occurred in tennis. The current hard and clay courts can keep their masters status. Just upgraded one of Queens or Halle and be done with it.

They could make the grass masters a choice unlike the other 9.

 

[MugOpponent]

There are 9 masters and one-third of them are played on clay, I've always thought another third of them should be played on grass to balance things out. But hard courts are favored because they're basically the "classic" surface nowadays.

Completely unreasonable to have 1/3 on grass when absolutely nobody grows up playing on grass. For the record there should be one grass Masters. I don't think that's unreasonable, but three is ridiculous.

 

[AlexanderTheGreat08]

Every year I see this thread

 

[Cashman]

The LTA (UK) might be one of the few, if not the only one, still using "lawn" in its name. The ILTF & the USLTA dropped "lawn" from their names in the late 1970s and became ITF and the USTA. The LTAA (Australia) dropped the moniker in the late 1980s and became Tennis Australia.

Whilst the national body has been changed to Tennis Australia, at lower levels the term 'lawn tennis' is still frequently used. e.g. I play for 'ABC Lawn Tennis Club', and our regional organising body is 'XYZ Lawn Tennis Association'.

I guess it is just one of those things that changes over time, like how 'Squash Racquets' became 'Squash'.

 

[Deleted member 762343]

Completely unreasonable to have 1/3 on grass when absolutely nobody grows up playing on grass. For the record there should be one grass Masters. I don't think that's unreasonable, but three is ridiculous.

Why would they need to grow up on grass to play 3 Masters1000 on grass ?

 

[PMChambers]

I'm in two minds, first there's no need for a grass masters, there are no current Tourneys worthy or could meet the requirements, but I've always been in favor of a consolidated compulsory schedule like most other sports.
So if there was a need other than Federer fan base wanting it for purely selfish reasons. Then this is very easy to achieve, hence why it's probably not a need.
There is a good time slot 2 weeks after Wimbledon currently dead. Dependant on location, weather etc, putting a M1000 weeks after Wimbledon would be easy enough. Replace Newport.
Keep existing 9 M1000, though Paris has justification issues.

 

[JW10S]

There's no grass Masters simply because the grass season is so short and there are only a few venues that have grass courts. There are a lot of clay tournaments, there are a lot of hard court tournaments, there are a lot of indoor tournaments, but there are only a handful of grass tournaments and no venue with enough grass courts for a Masters. I don't get why this keeps coming up every year.

 

[The Blond Blur]

They could make the grass masters a choice unlike the other 9.

That's essentially what Monte Carlo is so I don't see why not.

 

[chjtennis]

Very good question which needs to be fixed. At least promote either one of Halle or Queens.

 

[thrust]

Look, I get the time schedule is short, but why no Masters on grass courts? They could easily make Halle (Noventi Open) a master's. Germany needs a big tournament and grass deserves a master's if clay is going to get 3.

Queens is too small to be a master's and Wimbledon is in London already, but you could keep it a 500 and move it back a week. Yes, Stuttgart would get hurt, but it would still survive, or it could work a deal with Halle?

Just think it is fair if we are going to count total masters titles, there should at least be one on every surface.

Obviously I am a Fed fan, but I am seriously curious as to why there is not one...

Grass is for cows-LOL!

 

[Rogfan]

There's no grass Masters simply because the grass season is so short and there are only a few venues that have grass courts. There are a lot of clay tournaments, there are a lot of hard court tournaments, there are a lot of indoor tournaments, but there are only a handful of grass tournaments and no venue with enough grass courts for a Masters. I don't get why this keeps coming up every year.

So you’re saying there is no grass Master because, well there is no grass Master.

 

[Lew II]

Because grass is an obsolete surface that barely any tennis club/tournament employs.

 

[Lleytonstation]

Grass is for cows-LOL!

And clay is for pigs... lol?

 

[Rhino]

Can you imagine how many Masters Federer would have if there were three grass Masters events. And how few Nadal would have if there were no clay Masters! Crazy really how things are.

 

[Breakpointerer]

Personally, i would love to see Halle get promoted to Masters 1000 status, so all past winners of the event can receive a boost to their Masters 1000 tally.

Fed would have 37 M1000 titles lol

 

[Breakpointerer]

Personally, i would love to see Halle get promoted to Masters 1000 status, so all past winners of the event can receive a boost to their Masters 1000 tally.

Fed would have 37 M1000 titles lol