Talk About Tennis 2.0

BTW, Biggest thing of note here to me:

**A total of five 12-day ATP Masters 1000 tournaments in Indian Wells, Miami, Madrid, Rome and Shanghai, following the recent expansion of events under OneVision.**

Why expand those? They were fine events the way they were.
And of course, great for the ATP to play Shanghai. Women's rights in China? (expletive) that noise!
Cowards.

Meanwhile, the WTA hasn't released any calendar information for tour level tournaments after the 2023 US Open.

ponchi101 wrote: ↑Wed Mar 22, 2023 10:23 pm Why expand those? They were fine events the way they were.
And of course, great for the ATP to play Shanghai. Women's rights in China? (expletive) that noise!
Cowards.

It's part of their One Vision thing, beyond that, I'm not completely sure. There were rumblings before about other tournaments complaining about the IW and Miami schedules, saying it was unfair they got the extra time and promotion. Madrid expanded the women's tournament two years ago, but that was about the pandemic initially. And I haven't heard if the the women are getting the same upgrades in draws and prize money at the joint tournaments.

I wondered if this was to give the players a bit more rest, it's clearly a more relaxing few weeks for the players at IW and Miami, but I haven't heard it being related to that.

ATP is returning with Chinese tournaments this season. It's very disappointing, especially because the ATP could likely without too significant of a struggle figure out replacement events with major sponsors for anything that takes place there unlike the WTA.

3mlm wrote: ↑Thu Mar 23, 2023 8:11 am Meanwhile, the WTA hasn't released any calendar information for tour level tournaments after the 2023 US Open.

Still negotiating their return to China.

I'm thinking it's a bit hypocritical to make a stand about women's rights in China and at the same time be all in on tournaments in the Middle East.

^^ Seems like a better route for her return at the moment. We've seen many players come back and be able to win a match or two at main tour events while they knock off the rust, but Elina doesn't seem to be an example of that. She could likely do it at the 250 level, but the frequency of those tournaments has been sacrificed with these two week Madrid and Rome events.

Seems to me should she get herself back in match form as best she can as long as she can mentally take the step down in tournament level. She has not just the protected ranking but unlimited wild cards when her game is closer to being back to a top tier level and she can use both for entries.

I am not sure I endorse the strategy of playing ITF and challengers...there are good players there too, and a loss would just shatter a player used to being a top player ..if you win them all, yes but there are so many uncertainties in this game anyway. .

Agassi went that way ages ago, and I think it is a good path. It is better to get three matches in one week (and therefore get back in some sort of groove) than lose on Monday, and not hit any sort of competitive practice for the rest of the week.
And also. It can give you an idea of where you are. Sure, Elina won the matches, but the second one was 7-6 in the third. That says something too.

She also lost in them as well. One loss was to Clara Tauson, who really shouldn't be at that level either. Having fewer 250s makes ITF where players are going to need to play when they are lower ranked, coming back from injury, or in need of getting their game back on track.125s are preferable for all I'm sure, but they don't stage the same number of those as the others. Paire, Goffin, and Berrettini come to mind as players who have done it in recent years. Svitolina is far from an outlier and no one was calling out those players when they did it, they got praised for it.