The two week gap (previously ) between French and Wimbledon

[brokenshoelace]

1. With Rafa being vice president at that time, he actually had a larger clout and so it is not just about complaining in public. He was actually in a position to influence it.

2. Yes, it did benefit all players who participate in Barcelona (and who are good enough to be invited to Masters tourneys). No schedule change can benefit just one player, unless they have started player one person tourney.

3. You are asking is it the right thing to do, no. Just think about this. Barcelona is a 500 event. It should not even be taken into consideration while deciding where to place Masters tourneys which are more important events. There are seven weeks of clay season. Obviously, one does not want to keep a Master's event in the very first week of the season or the last week (the week immediately before RG). That leaves 5 weeks. If you want to schedule, the three Masters tourneys so that no two of them are consecutive (which they wanted to do so after the 2006 Rome Fiasco after which both Roger and Rafa dropped out of Hamburg). The elimination of Hamburg and the introduction of Madrid gave them the opportunity to rearrange things and they did so. The only reason it got changed was due to Rafa's complaints and influence.

4. You would be naïve to think that these kinds of decisions are made by some kind of vote by all players. There is no such vote. The top players and/or player's rep often get more say in these things.

5. Your paragraph about overall schedule is not relevant to this discussion.

6. I don't think anyone compared the scheduling issue to umpire issue or FIFA.

7. The problem is that you think you are the only person who understands how the system works as well as the only person who can think logically.

1. Exactly. Except it's not a decision he can take on his own. Keep in mind, he was the VICE president. Not the president. Federer was. Make of that what you will.

2. So, you agree it didn't just benefit Nadal, which makes it a better solution for everyone involved. Good.

3. How is it not the right thing to do? What were the negatives exactly? Seriously, you haven't offered a single convincing argument that makes this remotely an issue. Also, you can keep saying "the only reason this changed was because Rafa complained," but just a reminder, redundancy does not make a proof. You are just theorizing based on nothing but conjecture, with literally zero evidence to back it up.

4. You would be naive to think that's what I'm assuming. But please, do tell me how this works since you seem to have tremendous insight.

5. Actually, it is. Nadal complained about the overall length of the season and it was changed. Why aren't you saying "it was changed cause Rafa complained"?

6. I don't think you're great at reading.

"This is in no way similar to the Carlos Bernandez situation (which was in no way similar to the FIFA scandal or deflate-gate)."

Which means that the Bernandez situation was compared to the FIFA scandal and deflate-gate...by you, for those keeping score at home.

7. No, the problem is you don't.

 

[brokenshoelace]

Still waiting for a single proof. Or anything resembling it.

 

[rahulpawar]

GSM's argument is essentially this

1) I am not happy about weather being sunny today.

2) It rained.

I caused the rain.

 

[Moxie]

3. You are asking is it the right thing to do, no. Just think about this. Barcelona is a 500 event. It should not even be taken into consideration while deciding where to place Masters tourneys which are more important events. There are seven weeks of clay season. Obviously, one does not want to keep a Master's event in the very first week of the season or the last week (the week immediately before RG). That leaves 5 weeks. If you want to schedule, the three Masters tourneys so that no two of them are consecutive (which they wanted to do so after the 2006 Rome Fiasco after which both Roger and Rafa dropped out of Hamburg). The elimination of Hamburg and the introduction of Madrid gave them the opportunity to rearrange things and they did so. The only reason it got changed was due to Rafa's complaints and influence.

The result of the long Rome final which led to Roger and Rafa both withdrawing from Hamburg led to the institution of best 3-5 finals in MS events. I don't recall that there was a particular clamor not to have MS played in consecutive weeks. Can you back that up? Because IW and Miami are played consecutively, as are Roger's Cup and Cincy. Therefore, the Madrid-Rome double is not without precedent in the calendar.

 

[Front242]

GSM's argument is essentially this

1) I am not happy about weather being sunny today.

2) It rained.

I caused the rain.

^ Or you think more logically around the lines of let's see, shall we say, for example, I'm a 9 time French Open champion and I'm suffering come grass season with little time off to transition from clay to grass 'cos I'm almost always winning this tournament so is there anything you can do about it?

Why yes Mr. Nadal as you're generating an absolute ton of revenue for us, we can already retire before we're even 30 so it costs us nothing to help you. No problem at all Mr. Nadal. If you keep winning tournaments and pulling more tennis fans to events we'll continue to make even more revenue so I guess we better keep you happy, right?

Thank you very much Mr. ATP/ITF president, iz true no? Iz good to keep me happy, is good to be happy. I'm happy now. Will go fishing for few days and then go to try play better on grass, no? Hi from uncle Toni. He say he very happy now too. Iz true, I no lie.

 

[rahulpawar]

GSM's argument is essentially this

1) I am not happy about weather being sunny today.

2) It rained.

I caused the rain.

^ Or you think more logically around the lines of let's see, shall we say, for example, I'm a 9 time French Open champion and I'm suffering come grass season with little time off to transition from clay to grass 'cos I'm almost always winning this tournament so is there anything you can do about it?

Why yes Mr. Nadal as you're generating an absolute ton of revenue for us, we can already retire before we're even 30 so it costs us nothing to help you. No problem at all Mr. Nadal. If you keep winning tournaments and pulling more tennis fans to events we'll continue to make even more revenue so I guess we better keep you happy, right?

Thank you very much Mr. ATP/ITF president, iz true no? Iz good to keep me happy, is good to be happy. I'm happy now. Will go fishing for few days and then go to try play better on grass, no? Hi from uncle Toni. He say he very happy now too. Iz true, I no lie.

Show me the causation and I will agree with you.

 

[Puppet Master]

Front, you might not even realise this, but what you wrote was pure comedy gold.
:laydownlaughing

 

[GameSetAndMath]

1. Exactly. Except it's not a decision he can take on his own. Keep in mind, he was the VICE president. Not the president. Federer was. Make of that what you will.

2. So, you agree it didn't just benefit Nadal, which makes it a better solution for everyone involved. Good.

3. How is it not the right thing to do? What were the negatives exactly? Seriously, you haven't offered a single convincing argument that makes this remotely an issue. Also, you can keep saying "the only reason this changed was because Rafa complained," but just a reminder, redundancy does not make a proof. You are just theorizing based on nothing but conjecture, with literally zero evidence to back it up.

4. You would be naive to think that's what I'm assuming. But please, do tell me how this works since you seem to have tremendous insight.

5. Actually, it is. Nadal complained about the overall length of the season and it was changed. Why aren't you saying "it was changed cause Rafa complained"?

6. I don't think you're great at reading.

"This is in no way similar to the Carlos Bernandez situation (which was in no way similar to the FIFA scandal or deflate-gate)."

Which means that the Bernandez situation was compared to the FIFA scandal and deflate-gate...by you, for those keeping score at home.

7. No, the problem is you don't.

See bolded points of yours.

a You are making a quantum leap from "did not benefit just Nadal" to "better solution for everyone involved". Not everybody wants to play in Barcelona. It is a bad solution for anyone who is not playing in Barcelona.

b. The negative is playing two Clay Master's events back to back, which is completely avoidable and was avoided.

c. Good try in muddying. The "This" in the bolded statement refers to the current discussion on schedule changes. You are acting as though somebody compared it to Bernardes situation. Nobody did. (and you are commenting about my reading ability :laydownlaughing).

 

[Moxie]

GSM's argument is essentially this

1) I am not happy about weather being sunny today.

2) It rained.

I caused the rain.

^ Or you think more logically around the lines of let's see, shall we say, for example, I'm a 9 time French Open champion and I'm suffering come grass season with little time off to transition from clay to grass 'cos I'm almost always winning this tournament so is there anything you can do about it?

Why yes Mr. Nadal as you're generating an absolute ton of revenue for us, we can already retire before we're even 30 so it costs us nothing to help you. No problem at all Mr. Nadal. If you keep winning tournaments and pulling more tennis fans to events we'll continue to make even more revenue so I guess we better keep you happy, right?

Thank you very much Mr. ATP/ITF president, iz true no? Iz good to keep me happy, is good to be happy. I'm happy now. Will go fishing for few days and then go to try play better on grass, no? Hi from uncle Toni. He say he very happy now too. Iz true, I no lie.

Front, you've lost the plot. Even GSM doesn't think that Rafa influenced the grass schedule change. You can't think that moving Wimbledon happens based on a player's whim. The move serves Wimbledon, or they wouldn't have done it. More players in better grass shape makes a better tournament. Similar to the reason that Paris-Bercy wants a move...they get the players in tatters at the end of the year, and lots of withdrawals.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

3. You are asking is it the right thing to do, no. Just think about this. Barcelona is a 500 event. It should not even be taken into consideration while deciding where to place Masters tourneys which are more important events. There are seven weeks of clay season. Obviously, one does not want to keep a Master's event in the very first week of the season or the last week (the week immediately before RG). That leaves 5 weeks. If you want to schedule, the three Masters tourneys so that no two of them are consecutive (which they wanted to do so after the 2006 Rome Fiasco after which both Roger and Rafa dropped out of Hamburg). The elimination of Hamburg and the introduction of Madrid gave them the opportunity to rearrange things and they did so. The only reason it got changed was due to Rafa's complaints and influence.

The result of the long Rome final which led to Roger and Rafa both withdrawing from Hamburg led to the institution of best 3-5 finals in MS events. I don't recall that there was a particular clamor not to have MS played in consecutive weeks. Can you back that up? Because IW and Miami are played consecutively, as are Roger's Cup and Cincy. Therefore, the Madrid-Rome double is not without precedent in the calendar.

Yes, it led to the finals being changed from 5 to 3 sets. But, they were trying to do many things to mitigate the issue. Reducing from 5 to 3 was just one thing. They also introduced byes for the top 8 players due to the same thing. Ideally they wanted to keep them in non-consecutive weeks and that is why they did so in 2010.

As for IW and M or Canada and Cincy, the players actually prefer them to be together. This is because a majority of the players are European players and they don't want to be wasting time sitting in the US for a week in between the Masters doing nothing. It is too short to go back home and come back again. On the other hand this issue does not arise in the European clay court warm-up season as travel between different European countries is not much of an issue. Also, the clay court tourneys are generally considered more taxing due to extended rallies and so it would be preferable to keep them in non-consecutive weeks.

 

[Front242]

GSM's argument is essentially this

1) I am not happy about weather being sunny today.

2) It rained.

I caused the rain.

^ Or you think more logically around the lines of let's see, shall we say, for example, I'm a 9 time French Open champion and I'm suffering come grass season with little time off to transition from clay to grass 'cos I'm almost always winning this tournament so is there anything you can do about it?

Why yes Mr. Nadal as you're generating an absolute ton of revenue for us, we can already retire before we're even 30 so it costs us nothing to help you. No problem at all Mr. Nadal. If you keep winning tournaments and pulling more tennis fans to events we'll continue to make even more revenue so I guess we better keep you happy, right?

Thank you very much Mr. ATP/ITF president, iz true no? Iz good to keep me happy, is good to be happy. I'm happy now. Will go fishing for few days and then go to try play better on grass, no? Hi from uncle Toni. He say he very happy now too. Iz true, I no lie.

Front, you've lost the plot. Even GSM doesn't think that Rafa influenced the grass schedule change. You can't think that moving Wimbledon happens based on a player's whim. The move serves Wimbledon, or they wouldn't have done it. More players in better grass shape makes a better tournament. Similar to the reason that Paris-Bercy wants a move...they get the players in tatters at the end of the year, and lots of withdrawals.

No one is talking about him influencing anything to do with grass season so it's not me who's lost the plot, but you. The issue being discussed here was a change to the clay schedule which just so happens to have helped even more now with the extra week between the French Open and Wimbledon. :cover

 

[Carol]

I don't understand all this argument and why, is not Federer anymore the president? if he still is then by logic he is the one requesting those changes, Nadal quitted as vice a long time ego

 

[Front242]

The biggest irony here is the amount of times Nadal fans accuse non Nadal fans of not reading things properly :s:clap

 

[Moxie]

^ Or you think more logically around the lines of let's see, shall we say, for example, I'm a 9 time French Open champion and I'm suffering come grass season with little time off to transition from clay to grass 'cos I'm almost always winning this tournament so is there anything you can do about it?

Why yes Mr. Nadal as you're generating an absolute ton of revenue for us, we can already retire before we're even 30 so it costs us nothing to help you. No problem at all Mr. Nadal. If you keep winning tournaments and pulling more tennis fans to events we'll continue to make even more revenue so I guess we better keep you happy, right?

Thank you very much Mr. ATP/ITF president, iz true no? Iz good to keep me happy, is good to be happy. I'm happy now. Will go fishing for few days and then go to try play better on grass, no? Hi from uncle Toni. He say he very happy now too. Iz true, I no lie.

Front, you've lost the plot. Even GSM doesn't think that Rafa influenced the grass schedule change. You can't think that moving Wimbledon happens based on a player's whim. The move serves Wimbledon, or they wouldn't have done it. More players in better grass shape makes a better tournament. Similar to the reason that Paris-Bercy wants a move...they get the players in tatters at the end of the year, and lots of withdrawals.

No one is talking about him influencing anything to do with grass season so it's not me who's lost the plot, but you. The issue being discussed here was a change to the clay schedule which just so happens to have helped even more now with the extra week between the French Open and Wimbledon. :cover

Actually, the point of the thread IS the grass schedule. Forgive me if your lampoon made me think you were talking about the grass schedule (see bolded above.) The changes in the clay schedule are separate, and, of course, off-topic. If you're going to attempt satire, you really need to be clear about the debate.

 

[Moxie]

3. You are asking is it the right thing to do, no. Just think about this. Barcelona is a 500 event. It should not even be taken into consideration while deciding where to place Masters tourneys which are more important events. There are seven weeks of clay season. Obviously, one does not want to keep a Master's event in the very first week of the season or the last week (the week immediately before RG). That leaves 5 weeks. If you want to schedule, the three Masters tourneys so that no two of them are consecutive (which they wanted to do so after the 2006 Rome Fiasco after which both Roger and Rafa dropped out of Hamburg). The elimination of Hamburg and the introduction of Madrid gave them the opportunity to rearrange things and they did so. The only reason it got changed was due to Rafa's complaints and influence.

The result of the long Rome final which led to Roger and Rafa both withdrawing from Hamburg led to the institution of best 3-5 finals in MS events. I don't recall that there was a particular clamor not to have MS played in consecutive weeks. Can you back that up? Because IW and Miami are played consecutively, as are Roger's Cup and Cincy. Therefore, the Madrid-Rome double is not without precedent in the calendar.

Yes, it led to the finals being changed from 5 to 3 sets. But, they were trying to do many things to mitigate the issue. Reducing from 5 to 3 was just one thing. They also introduced byes for the top 8 players due to the same thing. Ideally they wanted to keep them in non-consecutive weeks and that is why they did so in 2010.

As for IW and M or Canada and Cincy, the players actually prefer them to be together. This is because a majority of the players are European players and they don't want to be wasting time sitting in the US for a week in between the Masters doing nothing. It is too short to go back home and come back again. On the other hand this issue does not arise in the European clay court warm-up season as travel between different European countries is not much of an issue. Also, the clay court tourneys are generally considered more taxing due to extended rallies and so it would be preferable to keep them in non-consecutive weeks.

Those are perfectly reasonable answers, but you don't provide any link to the thinking on the ATP's part which you are purporting to know. If you understand this to be their thinking, then you must have read it somewhere. I'm sure you can dig it up. Otherwise, you are theorizing what you think they should have thought, and guessing that they changed it because Nadal complained. That's a lot of reading in, if so.

As Broken said before, you can't think that changing the schedule doesn't come with lots of politics and considerations. Both Rome and Madrid have to dovetail with the WTA schedule, which introduces another layer of complication. I seriously doubt that all of that can be moved based on the whim of one player who likes to play a 500 in Barcelona, no matter how personally influential.

 

[brokenshoelace]

1. Exactly. Except it's not a decision he can take on his own. Keep in mind, he was the VICE president. Not the president. Federer was. Make of that what you will.

2. So, you agree it didn't just benefit Nadal, which makes it a better solution for everyone involved. Good.

3. How is it not the right thing to do? What were the negatives exactly? Seriously, you haven't offered a single convincing argument that makes this remotely an issue. Also, you can keep saying "the only reason this changed was because Rafa complained," but just a reminder, redundancy does not make a proof. You are just theorizing based on nothing but conjecture, with literally zero evidence to back it up.

4. You would be naive to think that's what I'm assuming. But please, do tell me how this works since you seem to have tremendous insight.

5. Actually, it is. Nadal complained about the overall length of the season and it was changed. Why aren't you saying "it was changed cause Rafa complained"?

6. I don't think you're great at reading.

"This is in no way similar to the Carlos Bernandez situation (which was in no way similar to the FIFA scandal or deflate-gate)."

Which means that the Bernandez situation was compared to the FIFA scandal and deflate-gate...by you, for those keeping score at home.

7. No, the problem is you don't.

See bolded points of yours.

a You are making a quantum leap from "did not benefit just Nadal" to "better solution for everyone involved". Not everybody wants to play in Barcelona. It is a bad solution for anyone who is not playing in Barcelona.

b. The negative is playing two Clay Master's events back to back, which is completely avoidable and was avoided.

c. Good try in muddying. The "This" in the bolded statement refers to the current discussion on schedule changes. You are acting as though somebody compared it to Bernardes situation. Nobody did. (and you are commenting about my reading ability :laydownlaughing).

a) Everyone involved means everyone who plays Barcelona...Thought that was pretty obvious? Especially since it has no negative effect on other players who don't since they get some rest.

b) Oh god, they have to play two clay masters events back to back? Alert the authorities... that never happens on hard courts...except that it does, at Indian Wells/Miami and Canada/Cinci. I personally don't understand how these ATP players are able to make it after two back to back masters. Troopers, they are.

c) Really? All the talk of "another case where the ATP caves in for Rafa's demands" is not a reference to the Benandez situation? Yeah OK.

 

[brokenshoelace]

The biggest irony here is the amount of times Nadal fans accuse non Nadal fans of not reading things properly :s:clap

I only accuse GSM of not reading properly. Your problem is a little different, and quite worse.

 

[Front242]

The biggest irony here is the amount of times Nadal fans accuse non Nadal fans of not reading things properly :s:clap

I only accuse GSM of not reading properly. Your problem is a little different, and quite worse.

Again, that's rich coming from you!

 

[Front242]

Front, you've lost the plot. Even GSM doesn't think that Rafa influenced the grass schedule change. You can't think that moving Wimbledon happens based on a player's whim. The move serves Wimbledon, or they wouldn't have done it. More players in better grass shape makes a better tournament. Similar to the reason that Paris-Bercy wants a move...they get the players in tatters at the end of the year, and lots of withdrawals.

No one is talking about him influencing anything to do with grass season so it's not me who's lost the plot, but you. The issue being discussed here was a change to the clay schedule which just so happens to have helped even more now with the extra week between the French Open and Wimbledon. :cover

Actually, the point of the thread IS the grass schedule. Forgive me if your lampoon made me think you were talking about the grass schedule (see bolded above.) The changes in the clay schedule are separate, and, of course, off-topic. If you're going to attempt satire, you really need to be clear about the debate.

Well, while topic of the thread is plain to see, the multiple pages being discussed here are all mostly about what GSM has been discussing, namely the change to the clay schedule. We hadn't really deviated from that at all reading back.

 

[Kieran]

And by the way, it's not unreasonable to defend somebody by simply asking to see proof. The argument that, "well there is no proof because the ATP won't admit it or destroyed the evidence" only begs the follow up: can you even prove that this coverup happened?

And of course, the eventual answer has to be "no", if you're ever going to be honest about this.

It gets too simple-minded to bear, sometimes. Best to just stay on topic and discuss the OP...

I have already provided the proof in post #29. I have shown you the schedule of 2010. I have shown that Rafa dropped out of Barcelona because he did not like the schedule, despite wanting to play in Barcelona. I have shown a newspaper article in which he clearly expresses his outrage. I have shown you the schedule of 2011 which is exactly as per his desire. If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, then it is a duck.

Even ATP is not stupid enough to write a memo saying that they changed the schedule to accommodate the wishes of Nadal. You can believe what you want to believe. That does not change the facts.

You contradicted yourself in the bolded sentences. Proof isn't based upon a bloke who hates me reading between the lines to draw a conclusion that's against me. Stand up in court and try that someday, it would be the easiest thing in the world to make you look foolish...