Round-Robin Causes Controversy And Chaos

In the past couple of weeks, the sport of tennis has been a complete and utter mess.

Why?

The format known as Round-Robin, will be familiar to many of you from a variety of sports where the concept makes more sense. However, in tennis it does not. Part of the beauty of tennis is that there are no second chances, there is no tomorrow. You win and you live to fight another day. You lose and it’s time to check out of the hotel and go home or move on to the next tournament.

Tennis has a number of issues in and around the sport that have long needed to be resolved so that the game can progress. Innovation and ideas are needed to solve various problems, but the knock-out format was never one of them. Etienne de Villiers decided that it was, and the round-robin concept was brought in at various tournaments in 2007 as an “experiment”. The experiment is but two months old and has already proved to be far more troublesome than even the powers that be might have suspected.

Tennis is no stranger to round-robin; the format is used at the season end Masters Cup where the top eight players of the season compete in two groups of four. If it works at all, it works during that event which is designed to be a showpiece where the sport can in effect ‘show off’ its elite talent. Applying that format and concept onto the ATP tour itself was never going to work for a variety of reasons, many of which were outlined by tennis fans all over the internet on various message boards and blogs. It’s a great shame for tennis that the fans and some players could see the troubles that would lay ahead, but that those in the most prominent and decision making positions were unable to see the bigger picture.

Tournament directors want the ‘star’ or seeded players in their tournaments for obvious reasons. However, if tennis is to uphold credibility then those stars and seeded players must not be given second bites at the cherry just because it is more desirable from a television ratings or ticket sales standpoint. If this is all that matters, then tennis has or will become no better than purely manufactured entertainment rather than sport. Sport is about competition, not twisting, turning and manipulating rules in order for bigger names to progress and sideline those trying to make names for themselves.

Let’s look at some of the instances this season where round-robin has brought about the kind of problems that many claimed would occur beforehand:

· Early in the season, both Xavier Malisse and Richard Gasquet commented on how there was absolutely no motivation or need for them to extend themselves in their final round-robin matches after they had both won the set they needed to progress, regardless of whether they lost the match. This was a situation that was clear to those with their eyes open that would occur many times over the course of the season and the players in question deserve credit for calling it like it is.

· In Buenos Aires last week, Juan Carlos Ferrero had lost his opening match to Nicolas Devilder. Devilder had earlier lost to Nicolas Lapentti. This set up a match between Ferrero and Lapentti where all permutations lay open; that was until Lapentti had to withdraw prior to the encounter. The result of which meant that Devilder was the victor of the group due to his head to head victory over Ferrero. Etienne de Villiers assured tennis fans that the introduction of round-robin would produce no ‘dead’ matches and yet Ferrero had to play exactly that against Lukas Dlouhy (drafted in due to Lapentti’s withdrawal). The result of the match had no bearing whatsoever on the tournament, it was completely irrelevant. The beauty of round-robin, huh?

· This week following the debacle in Argentina, came an altogether more absurd turn of events. A group containing James Blake, Juan Martin del Potro and Evgeny Korolev in Las Vegas looked very interesting as it featured the defending champion (Blake) and two highly touted and promising youngsters (del Potro and Korolev). Del Potro beat Korolev in straight sets and Korolev then beat Blake in straight sets. It meant that in the final group match, Blake needed to win for the loss of less than six games and the young Argentine needed just six games to advance as the group winner. Del Potro was not as his best physically and Blake led 6-1, 3-1, it looked like he was going to win the match by the score he needed. Del Potro couldn’t go on any longer or at the very least it wasn't in his interest to do so as he has a whole season (and career) to think about, not just playing out a match where he is in no condition to compete at the level required.

As in Buenos Aires due to the Lapentti withdrawal, the result of the Blake/del Potro match was now of no consequence due to the retirement. The determining factor would be the Blake/Korolev head to head, and thus the Russian was the legitimate winner of the group. Case closed, right? Not quite.

Not happy with their number one seed being knocked out in such circumstances, the ATP decided to…how shall we put it, ‘modify’, their rules mid-tournament. James Blake was to be declared the winner of the group and would advance to the quarter-finals. Why? Etienne de Villiers decided over a phone line that ‘James was within just a few games of wining this match comfortably to advance’, so I guess we are to assume that the head of the ATP not only is going to “shape the future of men’s tennis” but he can literally see the future too!

The decision caused uproar amongst players and fans, with Marat Safin and Lleyton Hewitt being vocal on the subject immediately. The fans had their say too in the form of this petition that will be forwarded to the ATP to further indicate their disgust at both the round-robin format and the unwarranted intervention in Las Vegas by the head of the ATP.

The pressure got to the ATP and eventually sense prevailed and their own rules respected, Korolev was declared the winner of the group and he went on to make the semi-finals of the tournament before a hard fought loss to Jurgen Melzer. All in all it has been one big mess that tennis could well do without, so much for this format being easy to follow and ‘fan friendly’. Are instances like this really likely to encourage those who are not yet avid tennis fans to become so? And just how much ‘experimentation’ are the already dedicated tennis fans supposed to put up with before their concerns are given more respect and consideration?

It’s incredibly disingenuous for anyone to claim tennis is now more ‘exciting’, the reality is that it is more chaotic and confusing. Furthermore, it is not about tennis fans not being able to embrace new ideas and change. The reality is that some things need changing, but this was not one of them. How much more needs to happen for this to become plainly obvious to those who don’t yet see the light? Time will tell. Hopefully, tennis will not suffer as a result.

On March 22nd the issue of round-robin will be discussed at an ATP board meeting. If you wish to add your support to the petition to be done with round-robin, please sign here. And to follow the progress of the petition and see what else you can do to make your voice heard, please take a look here and here.