In this week’s Nerdcast, Juan José proposes a reasonable and possible re-imagining of the tennis calendar, and Brodie of Mind the Racket helps flesh it out. Furthermore, they discuss the problems with how the schedule works now, and what’s up with the YECs and WTFs. And hey, good sound quality is back!
Don’t forget, you can subscribe to us on iTunes.
Just finished listening to the nerdcast. Well done J.J.. Your plan makes a whole lot of sense. The only thing I could think to change was, since a lot of the top guys don’t like playing Madrid in the lead up to the French Open, due to the elevation (and I think the different balls??), I’d swap the weeks that Monte Carlo and Madrid were played. Of course keep them both, because as you said, Monte Carlo has got to be beautiful setting for a tournament that there is. If Madrid was played first, then the altitude wouldn’t be that big of a deal because you’d still have Barcelona, Monte Carlo and Rome to get used to the clay before the French.
Such an awesome idea and change to horrible schedule. One of the best sports with currently one of the worst schedules. I think your changes make great improvements to the masters 1000 series, the Asian events and to give Australia a well deserving month of tennis. I feel as though tennis is starting to fizzle, with less stars an only a couple of events. I think more events in Australia, especially a 1000 series, will help the sport regrow there.
As for Indian wells and Miami in regards to the lower end players, what about sticking a 250 event during the 2nd week of both events, making it more worthwhile for the lesser players to stay in the states and play those tournaments. Change the Dallas #2 challenger to a 250. I think that would also generate more interest within Dallas and give a better warmup to Miami for the early exiters from inidian wells.
The only thing I didn’t hear you mention, and maybe you can address this in a future show, is where does Davis Cup fit in all of the this? Are they still maintaining the same schedule? The Davis Cul final is now mid-november, and that would be the off-season with your new schedule!
As for Beijing, they plenty of money, they can build a roof. Not every roof has to be retractable.
You keep mentioning that the slams can’t be moved. Well, the Aussie did move a number of times before settling on the ridiculous position of starting the year off with, well, a blast.
What other global sport starts off with bang and ends the season with a fizzle. Only tennis can manage to pull this off.
A solution much less ponderous than the one you suggest would be to move the Aussie to early November. This would be late spring in Melbourne. The Asian swing stays where it is. The off-season is now December and January. The first major (Paris) now has a long build-up and the season climatically ends with a slam (Austrailia). This also allows for the tour championships to pretty much stay where they are in late November.
Though the tortured souls at Tennis Austrailia would not be thrilled with this I think they could be persuaded.
Problem solved.
My thoughts on Australia are the same as Pete’s, however, maybe make it February instead of November. Australia has been moved multiple times and weeks leading up to it would be a good idea.
I was also wondering about Davis Cup. I remember you all saying it is unchangeable which is a shame. When I was in university, Fed Cup was a one week situation and I had a teammate from Canada that played doubles for Canada in Tokyo. It would be great to make Davis Cup a one week event and move it to a different city every year. If I am not mistaken, the individual federations run it. Is that right? But one week instead of four (?) times a year would be so much better for fans and the players. Then there could be a good two month offseason.
Loved this nerdcast!