Tennis Random, Random (On Court)

[Deuce]

This is rather petty (article below)...
Imagine - there is someone somewhere being paid to monitor the sponsor badges on players' clothing...

Last year at a junior tournament, I was watching a match and talking with some of the girl players when the main supervisor came over beside us to watch some of the match. After a couple of minutes, the supervisor spotted something 'illegal' on one of the girls...
He said "You have two Nike logos on your visor - the main one in the front, and a tiny one in the back. That's not allowed. You'll have to cover one of them up or cut off the back one."
The 15 year old girl replied with "Huh? What the hell?"

I told the supervisor that this is ridiculous, as these kids aren't on TV, and there were hardly any spectators at the tournament - whether there are 1 or 2 logos makes absolutely NO difference whatsoever... and I told him it was unhealthy to force these teenaged players into the silly adult world of foolishness before their time. "Leave them alone - they're kids, for god's sake - let them enjoy their childhood!" I said to him.

But this supervisor was a zealot for strictly following the rules, no matter how absurd, and he insisted that one of the logos had to disappear before she got onto the court.
(I wonder if he got the term 'supervisor' because of his penchant for checking to make sure the logos on the children's visors are 'legal' - thus rendering him the SUPER-visor...).

I am not a fan of marketing... and I am definitely not a fan of huge, filthy rich companies like Nike, who pay children in poor countries $2 per week to make the products that make their executives obscenely rich... but the principle of harassing these kids about the logos on their clothing was just so completely ridiculous.

In any case, here you go - the pro version of basically the same story...

Camilla Giorgi Caught in 'Illegal Act'!...

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[ponchi101]

Somebody mentioned that s/he would want to see more night matches featuring the women's tour.
Amelie Mauresmo was asked that question.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/french-open- ... 56052.html

[JazzNU]

I saw that earlier. Pretty bold of her to act like it's about star power and then put Rune vs. Ruud in the night match and previously put Rune vs. Gaston there.

Not sure how things work in France and if she needs to worry about this on a larger scale. The "men's game is more appealing" is an argument that was made to explain lack of interest in women's sports here many, many times. But the truth was that, women's sports were rarely put on TV for people to watch at anywhere near the same rate as men's. In recent years, they've gotten much more equitable coverage of many sports and while not as popular as the men's sports yet, they've been growing at a much greater rate that has made it clear, it's not the interest that was impossible, it was the access to the product. If all you do is try to promote men's tennis, then it's likely the men will be continue to have more star power.

[ti-amie]

Somebody mentioned that s/he would want to see more night matches featuring the women's tour.
Amelie Mauresmo was asked that question.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/french-open- ... 56052.html

Thanks for posting the entire article. I saw snippets of it on Twitter earlier and was going to look for a more complete version.

TD is not a job for the faint hearted. Her admission that right now the ATP has more appealing players will rankle die hard WTA only stans but again Ruud vs Rune? That is a match only tennis heads will love.

She said she does the best with the options she's given. You can't do more than that.

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

Some fan responses to the Mauresmo comments.





No one knows who Iga Swiatek is. No one knew who Ash Barty was in relation to tennis and that is a huge problem. The WTA has never marketed women's tennis it has always marketed stars and if you don't have the personality and drive to create a marketing niche for yourself you are truly SOL.

As has been said here if your wannabe stars get a hangnail (thanks Deuce) and quit their match who wants to see that or read/hear the miles of spin that will come afterwards to try and justify the players actions.

Look at this promo for tonights match for two relative unknowns even for tennis fans.



Sigh.

[Suliso]

Easy to market Nadal vs Djokovic. Try with Ruud vs Rune and see how easy it is outside Scandinavia.

[ponchi101]

Today's matches.
Kasatkina-Kudermetova. I don't think that would have cut it.
Rublev-Cilic. No star power there.
Ruud-Rune. Maybe in a couple of years Rune will be a better ranked and known player, and maybe easier to market. Right now, just a reasonable choice for tonight, because:
Iga-Pegula. You also have to take TV into consideration, and this match could have been a demolition. One of those recent Iga matches that last 52 minutes. It ended up being a reasonable 6-3, 6-2 but with Rune-Ruud you can count on two hours of match.
It was a tough choice today.
Friday: you have Rafa, now going to #14. I guess the marketing there is easy.

[Suliso]

A philosophical question - what where the odds before the WTA season that someone would have at least the 13th longest win streak of all time. Most of us were expecting parity instead. Predictions are hard, especially about the future, and past events are not an indicator of future outcomes.

[mmmm8]

Today's matches.
Kasatkina-Kudermetova. I don't think that would have cut it.
Rublev-Cilic. No star power there.
Ruud-Rune. Maybe in a couple of years Rune will be a better ranked and known player, and maybe easier to market. Right now, just a reasonable choice for tonight, because:
Iga-Pegula. You also have to take TV into consideration, and this match could have been a demolition. One of those recent Iga matches that last 52 minutes. It ended up being a reasonable 6-3, 6-2 but with Rune-Ruud you can count on two hours of match.
It was a tough choice today.
Friday: you have Rafa, now going to #14. I guess the marketing there is easy.

I'd say Rublev - Cilic has more "star power" than Ruud - Rune. I'd guess they may not want to feature Russian players at the moment but i think Medvedev - Cilic was a night match.

[ponchi101]

Yes. If you see it that way, sure, I can accept that. Rune might be a good choice because we don't know where he will be in a few years, so showing him perhaps is a marketing ploy for the future.
But other than Iga, there was nobody there to push the buttons. I would say.

[Deuce]

I think Leylah vs. Anisimova had enough entertainment potential to be a night match. Same could be said of Leylah vs. Bencic.
And both matches turned out to be close and entertaining - which, again, could definitely have been predicted.

The night match on the Leylah - Bencic day was Alcaraz - Korda, which was basically a straight set drubbing by Alcaraz. Granted, it had some decent potential before the match.
The night match on the Leylah - Anisimova day was Alcaraz - Khachanov, which was a routine straight set win for Alcaraz.

So... Alcaraz getting 2 night matches while there was a women's match that had at least as good a potential to be a good, close, entertaining match both times (and delivered on that both times) seems questionable at best.
The argument that men play best of 5 sets, and so can benefit from the cooler night conditions hold no water, as the temperatures in Paris this week have been cool during the day.

Mauresmo decides what the night match will be each day - it's not decided a week in advance. She should be doing a better job of balancing the men's and women's matches as the night match - because the WTA matchups have existed to do that.

[ponchi101]

Iga has established herself as the clear cut #1, and has the hardware now to make it totally, completely legit. Sure, she inherited the position after Barty's retirement, but her dominant run leaves no doubt that she is simply the best, right now. I repeat, plagiarizing Suliso: who knows what great rivalry we were robbed of with Barty's retirement.
But, from immediately below Swiatek the WTA is in disarray.
I know I contradict myself because I have stated that I like this parity, but these are the results for the other top ten players. Ranking, PRIOR TO RG, in parenthesis:
1r losers: Krejcikova (2), Jabeur (6), Kontaveit (5), Muguruza (10).
2r losers: Pliskova (8), Collins (9), Sakkari (4)
3r losers: Badosa (4), Sabalenka (7)

Again, maybe I like it, but I don't know if this is what the WTA wants or, even more important, the public wants. The absolute parity means that the difference between the #50 player and #2 has never been smaller. It means that your marquee matches, starting in the QF's, feature players like Kudermetova and Trevisan, fine players but nobody that is known to anybody other than hard core players.
How this will affect the tour is easy to see. It is fine if you have a new winner every week, as long as those winners are the favorites and are known. But Trevisan is a great example: she is playing very good tennis at the moment, winning Rabat the week before RG, and reaching the semis at a major, but she most likely will now fade away and not gain any traction with fans (outside of Italy).
Repeat for the 3rd time: maybe I like the current parity, but I am certainly the only one. And I gather that there is nothing that can be done, because in a meritocratic system like sports, there is no way to create stars if they can't win their matches. So the WTA may enter a phase in which they will be victims of their own success. They have created a very balanced and open field for players to compete in, with a lot of contenders. And at the same time, they have created a product that will be hard to sell.
I think. The stands were packed for the RG final, so maybe nobody minds this revolving door at the top.

[Suliso]

Someone else will step up soon. Gauff is a good candidate and Osaka might be back as well.

[Suliso]

Eight women have won 35 or more matches in the row in the Open era (some more than once) - Navratilova, Graf, Court, Evert, Hingis, Seles, Venus and Swiatek.