Shanghai 2008: too predictable?

Spain's victory in the final of the Davis Cup against Argentina provided a brilliant end to the tennis year, but the Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai doesn't have the meaning it should do as the end-of-season championships.

Novak Djokovic (left) was clearly ecstatic with his victory, and so he should be because it is a phenomenal achievement, but too many withdrawals and fatigue among the top four again played a part in the tournament. By contrast, the Davis Cup final was full of incident and fully representative of an excellent year in tennis.

What's the problem with the Masters Cup?

The problem lies in the structure of the tournament. The media pack for Shanghai says:

"This year’s Tennis Masters Cup is set to deliver another riveting finish to
the tournament circuit, with the heated Race to the Tennis Masters Cup providing
a snapshot of the caliber of tennis to be played. With the best of the best set
to go head to head, each match will provide high-quality and intense tennis akin
to a Grand Slam final."

Qualifying in the top eight in the world for the Masters Cup is the principle achievement, and not the tournament itself. This was especially true of this year's tournament because the year-end world number one, Rafael Nadal, had withdrawn, and wouldn't be present to pick up his trophy. Therefore there was little prestige to inspire the players to play their best tennis, to call it a "Grand Slam final" is not true.

How could the Masters Cup be improved?

One possible solution could be introduce a system similar to rugby league and rugby union where the league champions are decided by play-offs. This maintains interest through to the end of the season, and although it's often not fair it gives the season the send-off it deserves. This is especially true of rugby league's Super League Grand Final.

Would this work for Shanghai?

Whether this would prove successful for tennis is debatable, because consistently good tournament results show a player's class over a number of months. But if the Masters Cup was elevated to become a fifth Grand Slam with more ranking points on offer then it would get more recognition from the players who will want the distinction of playing in it.

There could still be the final, one-off, match declaring the '2008 World Champion', as well as crowning the player who ended the year as world number one.

The future for the Masters Cup

Therefore, for the Masters Cup to be as important as its equivalents in other sports, the ATP must give it the prestige it deserves as the curtain fall for individual achievement in world tennis. Otherwise it's just another tournament, which the last event of the year shouldn't be.

Picture by toga on Flickr.

The season ends as it started

With only the Davis Cup final between Spain and Argentina left to play, the tennis year came to an end with Novak Djokovic's victory over Nikolai Davydenko in the final of the Tennis Master's Cup in Shanghai. Djokovic won the Australian Open in January, so the season has come full circle with the Serb winning the first and last big tournaments of the year, regardless of my thoughts on the relevance of the end-of-season championships.

Djokovic's form had been patchy in the weeks building up to the tournament, and he was far from convincing in Shanghai but produced an excellent display against Davydenko in the final. The Russian makes very few errors and makes his opponents win matches, instead of him losing them. And that's exactly what Djokovic did, his forehand packing the punch of the beginning of the year.



That Djokovic's form had been inconsistent may have helped his fitness in Shanghai. Roger Federer looked in need of a rest and a boost in confidence, and Andy Murray looked very tired against Davydenko in their semi-final.

As for my pre-tournament thoughts, Roddick pulled out after one match, but Gilles Simon made the last four and Davydenko the final and none of the form players reaching the final- Rafa Nadal failed to make the starting line. Possibly a little too predictable in that case because I have seen this happen before in the Master's Cup with strange finalists in particular. Some of the matches- Federer against Murray as I blogged on in particular- did bring the tournament alive however.

Shanghai comes alive!

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.

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)

The best and worst tennis tournament of the year

The end of season Tennis Masters's Cup began today in Shanghai. Basically, for those of you who don't know, it's a tournament for only the top 8 players in the world (pictured left) to battle it out to decide (unoficially) who the best player in world is, and crown the end of year world number one.

Unfortunately, for those of you who do know what it is, you'll be aware that it is largely a pointless add-on to a schedule that is already too overcrowded with tournaments where the best player in world, previously Roger Federer and now Rafa Nadal, often comes unstuck because they're tired and can't really be bothered.

This has come to the point this year where Nadal has pulled out, citing fatigue. What he really means is Spain are in the final of the Davis Cup in a couple of weeks and he doesn't want to be too tired. He's guaranteed to end the year world number one, has had a great year and has earned this rest.

The fitness of the other two favourites for the tournament, Federer (back) and Andy Murray (fatigue) have also been brought into question. Added to second seed Novak Djokovic's loss of form since May and there could well be some surprises in Shanghai.

This could see Andy Roddick, Nikolai Davydenko and Gilles Simon (who's in great form) with real chances of picking up some end-of-season wins. But Roddick apart, they're not really stellar names are they?

I'll blog again later in the week on progress at Shanghai, but I'm not holding out for much. The tournament is like taking the top 8 teams in the Premiership at the end of the season and after Man Utd have won the league for example, the 8 play off against each other in the Far East for no reason in particular other than to get a bit of extra money, because all the major prizes have already been won. Pointless.

Hopefully Sepp Blatter (President of FIFA) doesn't get any ideas...

(Image courtesy of Tennis Masters Cup website)