So it’s come to this. We’ve had one of the biggest names in tennis, Andy Roddick, pull out of the end-of-season Tennis Masters’ Cup half-way through the tournament – to be replaced by the world number 27 Radek Stepanek. I’m not really too sure why, but I’m sure the ATP have their reasons for bringing him in to play the final two group matches, which he duly lost to Roger Federer and Giles Simon.
The tournament is clearly an effort on the part of the ATP to squeeze a few more pence out of the ridiculously overcrowded schedule at the end of the year. As Laurence Kilgannon had commented on my last blog of the tournament, this event was clearly another example of sports’ governing bodies putting profits before the welfare of the athletes they’re designed to protect.
It’s surely only a matter of time before the Premier League accepts the proposed 39th game as an end-of-season money spinning initiative. The Guinness Premiership (Rugby Union) already has a system whereby the team that accumulates the most points at the end of the season doesn’t win the league. The teams that finish in the top four in the league go to a playoff stage to decide who goes forward to Twickenham for the ‘grand final’ to decide the league champions. Again, another exercise to provide the RFU with more money.
This is, at least what I was going to write before the final game of the group stages at Shanghai between Federer and Britain’s Andy Murray (above). Murray had already qualified for the semi finals and Federer needed a win to qualify. It was all set up for Federer to win and Simon to be knocked out, to get the big names through.
What actually transpired was a match full of incident which swayed both ways before Murray eventually came out on top and knocked Federer out. A truly absorbing contest, worthy of any end of season championships between two evenly matched rivals played out to win a single match, and not to get the big names through to the latter stages.
The tournament is clearly an effort on the part of the ATP to squeeze a few more pence out of the ridiculously overcrowded schedule at the end of the year. As Laurence Kilgannon had commented on my last blog of the tournament, this event was clearly another example of sports’ governing bodies putting profits before the welfare of the athletes they’re designed to protect.
It’s surely only a matter of time before the Premier League accepts the proposed 39th game as an end-of-season money spinning initiative. The Guinness Premiership (Rugby Union) already has a system whereby the team that accumulates the most points at the end of the season doesn’t win the league. The teams that finish in the top four in the league go to a playoff stage to decide who goes forward to Twickenham for the ‘grand final’ to decide the league champions. Again, another exercise to provide the RFU with more money.
This is, at least what I was going to write before the final game of the group stages at Shanghai between Federer and Britain’s Andy Murray (above). Murray had already qualified for the semi finals and Federer needed a win to qualify. It was all set up for Federer to win and Simon to be knocked out, to get the big names through.
What actually transpired was a match full of incident which swayed both ways before Murray eventually came out on top and knocked Federer out. A truly absorbing contest, worthy of any end of season championships between two evenly matched rivals played out to win a single match, and not to get the big names through to the latter stages.
This is what sport is about. Not the multi millions of dollars on offer to the winner of a tournament that no one really cares about, but two players simply playing for the joy of winning. From a personal point of view, I’m glad that my prediction of Simon to get through a tough group has come to fruition!
Hopefully the semi-finals – Murray v Nikolai Davydenko and Simon v Novak Djokovic – will keep up the standard.
Maybe end-of-season tournaments are a good idea after all.
(Image of Andy Murray supplied by mandj98's flickr page)
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