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GRAND SLAM SEEDING CHANGE
DOESN'T CREATE EXCITEMENT
Tradition is best served with a return
to 16 seeds
By
Sandra Harwitt
tennisreporters.net
FROM WIMBLEDON – On the heels
of Venus Williams’s shocking first-round upset to Barbara Schett
of Austria at '01 Roland Garros, tennis officials scrambled to come
up with a formula to prevent a Grand Slam from losing a top name
draw in the early rounds. The masterminds had a caucus and came
up with a grand idea they implemented two weeks later at Wimbledon
'01 – seeding 32 players instead of 16 players.
This brainstorm was to alleviate the possibility
of players that could be deemed “almost seeds” from being
dangerous floaters in the draw that could dump top seeds out in
the first or second rounds.
To be perfectly truthful, the Williams loss last year at the French
was a rare fluke in the women’s game. For the most part, the
competition usually holds to form unless there’s a good reason
why it doesn’t. For instance, No. 5 seed Kim Clijsters was
an upset victim to Elena Likhovtseva of Russia in straight sets
Thursday. Yes, Clijsters was a highly seeded player, but she’s
been suffering with a shoulder and arm injury all year and has not
been feeling very confident on court so her loss was not that surprising.
REVOLVING DOOR SHEDS SEED THEORY
The theory behind the 32 seeds certainly held no magic for
the men’s draw on Wednesday when top seeds exited Wimbledon
so fast they installed a revolving door at the All England Club.
Gone – second-seeded Marat Safin, a guy with a game good to
go on grass courts. But the '00 U.S. Open champion watched his big
serve go south with his concentration and his opponent, Olivier
Rochus of Belgium, was into the third round with a 6-2, 6-4, 3-6,
7-6 (7-1) win.
Gone – third-seeded Andre Agassi, who won his first Grand Slam
trophy of seven career major trophies here at Wimbledon in 1992.
Agassi never could get his game in gear against a pumped up Paradorn
Srichaphan of Thailand and fell in straight sets. After the match,
Agassi looked confused as to what happened and how it happened so
fast.
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Susan Mullane
Camerawork USA, Inc.
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Gone – sixth seeded Pete Sampras, the guru
of grass, who won seven Wimbledon titles amongst his record 13 Grand
Slam trophies. Sampras should be able to survive a grass court encounter
against most opponents on memory, but he couldn’t seem to remember
he was playing lucky loser George Bastl and wasn’t supposed
to lose in five sets.
Now with the carnage having taken place, the bottom half of the
men’s draw has been watered down in a way that the 32-seed
concept was supposed to prevent. Sure, there are some names down
there capable and deserving of traversing their way to the final
– fifth-seeded Yevgeny Kafelnikov, 11th-seeded Andy Roddick,
23rd-seeded Greg Rusedski, unseeded Mark Philippoussis among the
contenders. But the names we were more likely expecting to be standing
in the final rounds have all said farewell, thereby spoiling the
reasoning for 32 seeds.
In truth, what took place here on Black Wednesday is not the typical
occurrence at Grand Slams since the 32-seed policy has been instituted
at the majors. What normally happens in both the men’s and
women’s competition is not much of anything – the first
few rounds are not only void of any really big upsets, but the matches
frequently tend to be lopsided and dull affairs. While it’s
hard to deny that we could have done with a little less excitement
yesterday and would have preferred not to lose Sampras, Agassi and
Safin in one fell swoop, that’s the way it happened.
Trying to prevent top players from being toppled in the early rounds
hasn’t enhanced the interest at Grand Slams one iota. And let’s
not forget that the player who is ranked 26, 28 or 32 in the world
doesn’t truly deserve the seeding protection.
When this policy was first instituted last year this tennisreporters.net
correspondent spoke out against the decision. Now that it’s
been around for the year I am even more adamant that the change
has not been to the benefit of the game. A purist at heart, I suggest
we go back to tradition, seed 16 players, let the fun begin and
the chips fall as they may.
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