So whose bright idea was it to put Davis Cup right after the US Open?
Okay, maybe it means that everyone gets a few days off where they have no obligation to play any tournaments, but for Davis Cup to have real prestige, you want the big guys to be there, yeah? You want your Federers and your Nadals and Murrays and del Potros, and... oh yeah, I bet these guys have just been in the final couple of rounds of the US Open! I bet the first thing they want to do is fly off to some farflung corner of the earth to play Davis Cup... especially if it's a relegation tie. They're everyone's favourites!
To be fair, most of the big guys are doing this - Nadal is out injured, which is hardly anyone's fault, but Federer is off to play, and a few of the other big guys as well. But I can't imagine they'd be especially pleased about having to hop off to somewhere halfway around the world when their collective heads are still in New York. It must be incredibly hard to refocus for them.
I can imagine that if there was a tournament the week after New York and Davis Cup was, say, a week after that, not many people would play that tournament. Only the lower ranked players who didn't quite make the cut for their nation's squad would be there. But I think it would be better for Davis Cup as a tournament. The big guys would have some time to refocus, the tennis world would have some time to catch their breath and regroup, and by the time the ten day break or whatever was over, everyone would be gagging for good tennis. Yesno?
I just realised how much this reads like a 'What I Will Do When I Am President Of The ITF' sort of kiddie essay. Oops. Blush. But Davis Cup and team tennis gets shafted a lot, and by playing it directly after one of the major events of the year, I think that reinforces that. I'd be interested to know if the player's council have a view on this. I know scheduling is Rafa's little pet issue, so I wonder if he has any opinion on this...
Today's Results
China GDD Guangzhou International Women's Open (Guangzhou)
Shahar Peer def. Akgul Amanmuradova, 6-3 6-3
Alexandra Panova def. Olga Govortsova, 7-5 6-4
Ayumi Morita def. Abigail Spears, 1-6 6-1 6-0
Alberta Brianti def. Lenka Wienerova, 6-3 6-1
Afterthoughts (a.k.a therapy)
5 years ago
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1 comment:
Hey Jodi,
I was reading Sampras's bio the other day where he was suggesting that they should do it as a single tournament - two weeks, one host country, intensively.
It's not just playing this tie straight after the US Open either. The semifinals were just after Wimbledon, so we had 6 weeks of best-of-5 set tennis from the French Open straight through to the end of the Davis Cup for some of the players. It's crazy.
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