How would you change the men's tour, if you could?

[El Dude]

As the thread subject says: how would you change the tour, in terms of pretty much anything?

For me I'd love to see more court diversity, less homogeneity. Maybe not back to the 80s-90s, but certainly more diverse than now. Maybe try to speed up USO to bring back more differentiation between it and AO.

I'd also change one of the Masters to grass, possibly turning Halle to a Masters (and giving Germany back its lost Masters), and probably adding another week or two between Roland Garros and Wimbledon by pushing RG earlier into May (and also slightly reducing the huge gulf of time between the AO and RG). I'd probably down-grade one of the clay or hard tournaments to an ATP 500.

One thing I would NOT do is, as some have suggested, add a fifth Slam. Some sacred cows shouldn't be slain.

What about you?

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Move Hamburg to before RG part in the calendar, perhaps keeping it in parallel with Barcelona 500.
Thus, we can have one Clay 500 for the Spaniards and another Clay 500 for all others.

 

[Kieran]

As the thread subject says: how would you change the tour, in terms of pretty much anything?

For me I'd love to see more court diversity, less homogeneity. Maybe not back to the 80s-90s, but certainly more diverse than now. Maybe try to speed up USO to bring back more differentiation between it and AO.

I'd also change one of the Masters to grass, possibly turning Halle to a Masters (and giving Germany back its lost Masters), and probably adding another week or two between Roland Garros and Wimbledon by pushing RG earlier into May (and also slightly reducing the huge gulf of time between the AO and RG). I'd probably down-grade one of the clay or hard tournaments to an ATP 500.

One thing I would NOT do is, as some have suggested, add a fifth Slam. Some sacred cows shouldn't be slain.

What about you?

Word for word, basically. The homogenised thingy has created a huge disconnect with the greats of that past. It's almost like a different sport, with a different set of criteria for measuring greatness.

No fifth slam, no change to the let cord rule, none of the usual stuff blokes like McEnroe suggest (players calling the lines, etc :cover ). The things you mentioned there would be my changes too.

Maybe in terms of the masters series there could be a floating masters, one that moves around, so smaller tennis countries get a huge event every ten years or so...

 

[El Dude]

Good stuff. I kind of like the idea of moving the WTF each year to different court types and countries, making it a kind of "wheel of fortune" tournament, maybe even increasing it to the top 10, with #1-2 getting a first round bye.

 

[mrzz]

Ditto to everything in the OP (but I would take court heterogeneity to 80/90´s level).

5 setter final on the YEC. Possibly 5 setters on the master´s finals. Less mandatory events.

I would change Davis Cup (I know it is not exactly this topic) to make it less dependent on top players.

 

[isabelle]

Masters's final in 5 please
shorter grass season
no more mandatory events, it means nothing anyway as players skip what they want

 

[Front242]

Masters's final in 5 please
shorter grass season
no more mandatory events, it means nothing anyway as players skip what they want

Shorter grass season?! It's already WAY too short. We have nothing but clay and hard court. Masters finals best of 5 would be nice for the players but I guess they won't go back to those days as they figured the players got too tired. It does, however, mean Novak's record number of masters is very much diminished given Federer and Nadal played a lot of them when the finals were best of 5 and therefore way harder to win like slam finals.

 

[Kieran]

Yeah, I think the opposite should occur: a longer grass court season. It is lawn tennis, after all. But I suppose finding space in the calendar is going to be a problem, unless they extend the break between the FO and Wimbledon to 4 or 5 weeks...

 

[nehmeth]

Remove Tennis as an Olympic Event
Short of that? Then NO DAVIS CUP during Olympic years.

A longer grass court season.
At least 1 Masters 1000 grass event... probably Halle as it's a larger venue.

Mandatory to play 7 of 10 (if grass 1000 added) MS1000 events, allowing the players to choose which seven they will play.

 

[Murat Baslamisli]

Remove Tennis as an Olympic Event
Short of that? Then NO DAVIS CUP during Olympic years.

A longer grass court season.
At least 1 Masters 1000 grass event... probably Halle as it's a larger venue.

Mandatory to play 7 of 10 (if grass 1000 added) MS1000 events, allowing the players to choose which seven they will play.

Agree with all of the above ...and a quick rule change: A service let should be play on. It would add excitement and speed up the game .

 

[Fiero425]

Remove Tennis as an Olympic Event
Short of that? Then NO DAVIS CUP during Olympic years.

A longer grass court season.
At least 1 Masters 1000 grass event... probably Halle as it's a larger venue.

Mandatory to play 7 of 10 (if grass 1000 added) MS1000 events, allowing the players to choose which seven they will play.

Agree with all of the above ...and a quick rule change: A service let should be play on. It would add excitement and speed up the game .

ITA the schedule needs revising; esp. in Olympic yrs! Start moving the YEC around the world on diff. surfaces, making it more of a challenge to defend! Nole's gonna set records hard to break @ that event if it continues "as is!" :nono :ras:

 

[GameSetAndMath]

Keep tennis in Olympics, but make it a team event (either dual gender or two separate events one for either gender, but in either case it should be team event(s).)

 

[Fiero425]

Keep tennis in Olympics, but make it a team event (either dual gender or two separate events one for either gender, but in either case it should be team event(s).)

...and cancel DC & Fed Cup in Olympic years! Nole was unable to do both at his age along with the USO sandwiched between the events! uzzled :nono :angel: :cover