Saturday 18 June 2011

What lunacy is required to put together the Wimbledon draw?

I know to some I seem repetitive when complaining about tennis draws at the professional level but once again those that cobbled together something that resembles a draw but is anything but fair to many of the entered players for the third Grand Slam tournament of 2011 have motivated me to write a few lines of disappointment.

The example will centre on the ladies draw. Once again, and this is so not just at Wimbledon, the seedings are not set properly through the 128 players, if weighting is to be given first to the the number one seed then progressively down to the number 32 seed. The way the seeded players are treated by juggling their positions in such a huge tournament where much is at stake including points to defend, prize money from round to round and of course prestige, is abhorrent.

In an equitable system, the third round match ups, should seeded players win their respective matches, would include number 1 Wozniacki playing 32 Pironkova. No, instead she has the troubling prospect of meeting 27 seed and a player that made the fourth round here last year Gajdosova.
16 seed Goerges should play 17 but who does she get? 24 seed Cibulkova. Meanwhile 14 seed Pavlyuchenkova, ranked higher than Goerges is expected to play the 17 seed Kanepi. One may ask what did she do to deserve that apart from be the wrong seed drawn out out of the hat.

Then we come to the round of sixteen and hopefully things have corrected themselves but no not a chance - it's the lucky number 8 seed Kvitova who should be in the battle of her life with 9 seed Bartoli but is drawn to play 12 seed Kuznetsova, who also must be smiling to think that the number 5 seed she should be playing is former champion and favorite Maria Sharapova.

The quarters is where it should be easy - the top seed has earned the right to play the lowest seed at that point and so on - 1 v 8, 2 v 7, 3 v 6 and 4 v 5

Instead we have 1 v 5 (not much reward for the top seed there) 2 v 8, 3 v 7 and 4 v 6.
And naturally the semis are not 1 v 4 and 2 v 3 either but by then all the damage caused by draw inequity with seeding placement would have been done.

Whether you are with me or not on the seedings placement issue, the placement of the other 96 players is a worry and I will mention the following as an example.

Francesca Schiavone is the current French Open runner-up and seeded 6 at Wimbledon but has been drawn to play Jelena Dokic in the first round - Dokic could very well come into the tournament on the back of a win - OK luck of the draw. However on the same side of the draw we have two instances of qualifiers playing each other in first round matches and these players don't even know who they are yet. At least 2 of them are into the second round at Wimbledon and we don't know whether they are yet in the draw.

Quality players like Schiavone and Dokic have earned direct entry and are only guaranteed first round loser prize money. Why on earth should we guarantee that one qualifier, let alone two, be assured of featuring in round two of the main draw, simply by letting them play against each other. That is what the idea of managing the placement of additional entries to those already directly accepted, is all about. Not making a mess of it. Daniela Hantuchova is potentially a winner. Her first two opponents, yet unknown, we do know will be qualifiers.

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