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How about an #OLDGEN Tournament?
4 Comments · Posted by Scoop Malinowski in Articles, Scoop
The ATP #NEXTGEN innovation tournament has been an outstanding success. The tennis industry, fans, media, and business side have all embraced the year-end showcase event which spotlights the young pro players 22 and under.
This year’s fourth edition featured 18 year old Carlos Alcaraz top Sebi Korda in the thrilling final. Alcaraz joins Jannik Sinner, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Hyeon Chung NEXTGEN ATP Finals champions.
With the overall success of this concept tournament, there is an open door to explore the next innovative idea for pro tennis.
I suggest the converse… an #OLDGEN year end tournament for ATP players 35 and older.
A tournament to celebrate older players we all remember, and to give these veteran competitors an opportunity to shine again and gain momentum for the following year.
This year’s 2021 #OLDGEN Finals draw could have featured… Gael Monfils, John Isner, Kevin Anderson, Richard Gasquet, Pablo Andujar, Pablo Cuevas, Andreas Seppi, Feliciano Lopez as the top eight for a round robin.
Or a 16 mini draw also with Philipp Kohlschreiber, Gilles Simon, Fernando Verdasco, Sergey Stakhovsky, Go Soeda, Denis Istomin, Tobias Kamke, Jo Wilfried Tsonga, with Ivo Karlovic, Paolo Lorenzi and Lukas Rosol as alternates.
Wouldn’t it be interesting to see who is the best 35 year old plus player in the ATP?
A natural site for such a tournament could be in Florida, either Longboat Key Club or the beautiful, old Key Biscayne Crandon Park venue which staged the Miami Open for decades but is now mainly used for junior tournaments and public play. The legendary tennis paradise venue is one of the greatest sites in pro tennis history.
If the round robin or 16 man draw is not enough, a random doubles draw can also be added, meaning each team is placed together by random draw.
The idea is intriguing and could bring back pro tennis to Key Biscayne, where it has been sorely missed since Miami Open relocated to the football stadium off highway 95 about ten miles north three years ago.
Cory · November 24, 2021 at 7:58 am
Scoop, does the nextgen tourney give out ATP points? If so, then yeah a 35+ tourney is a great idea. I would love it
Scoop Malinowski · November 24, 2021 at 8:22 am
Cory, No points for nextgen. Think there should be though. Give the lower rated players all the chances they can to earn points. Alcaraz earned $400,000 for winning nextgen. Korda earned $258,000 for making the final.
Cory · November 24, 2021 at 1:00 pm
Not a fan of the NextGen scoring system. One of the big reasons i didn’t watch it. Saw same scoring system used in some exhibitions in the summer of 2020 while the ATP/WTA and ITF shut down. Traditional scoring is sacred. Sets to 4 and no-ad? Come on. Same nonsense is happening with MLB too.
Scoop Malinowski · November 24, 2021 at 1:20 pm
Cory I don’t like the scoring either but it’s the right tournament to do it, hope they limit 4 to just this tournament. If the grand slams do this 4 baloney I may turn this into pickleball-prose.com.