ATP Cup: Passion Ignites As Serbia Stuns France

Jeff – I think the public would soon get tired of team events. These two have been novelties so there’s been a lot of interest. Tennis is an individual sport – that’s where players make their names. And I can see problems fitting them into any meaningful schedule. WTT was supposed to take over tennis but it didn’t because because when push came to shove the players preferred the spotlight on themselves.

You can’t run team events without the top players and that’s not going to work. Wait and see how many would stay away from GSs for some 2nd rank team event. Kyrgios prefers teams because he finds playing for himself difficult. But he’s probably the exception.

And the WTA would have problems fielding teams – some countries have only one decent player. You’d have trouble getting sponsorship for a women’s team event in addition to the Fed Cup. The idea for a WTA Cup isn’t going to get off the ground I’m afraid.

Myself, not that it matters, I’d stop following tennis if it was just teams. I like the one to one.

Hartt, no doubt. Catherine, no doubt. Some other players have had this injury – glory cycle. Djokovic had a big problem before his oxygen treatment thing.

I don’t put Andreescu in that set of players as she hasn’t earned it, the perennial injured champion. But she has to know by now that she has a pattern of playing incredible tennis then taking a “season off during the season”.

I don’t think much about it in watching just that it would be interesting to see what happens when she’s in a draw. I know the field isn’t shedding tears over this – they feel a little bad and then are releived she isn’t in the draw. Serena Williams might want a rematch but she’s a little more unique! Osaka is unphased one way or the other, she has enough confidence in her game to square off as she survived their last marathon.

Tommy Paul has a nice qualifying result in knocking off Nico Jarry of Chile in straights. There’s a lot of qualifying!!!

Jon – you’re right that before long team events would bring politics into the game. Anyone doubts this, just have a look around.

I don’t care much about the Olympics – tennis shouldn’t be there IMO. Thiem agrees with me I think.

And Andrew – yes, too much play. All those moans about the never ending season just make me laugh.

Andreescu will be missed because she is quite a hard court player and the Australian surface should be to her liking (I think?). Assuming she brought the same ferocious tennis from summer 2019 (big if) she would have been good to watch. But as tennis goes one player’s loss is another player’s good fortune (or two or three or four players, whole draw changes) and life goes on.

Yes catherine, that is one major reason I am not into the team stuff. It just gets into the politics, ethnic stuff, etc. Unavoidable over time.

I know that is the real world but we are in our junior tennis safe space. We go to a level 6 tournament in South Florida, a girl from France playing, a boy from Egypt. The kids at age 8 played tic tac toe with kids from other countries who spoke a different language. Little Mo we hung with parents from all over. We have trained with people from about 30 countries the past 10 years.

Tennis is how we have met folks from all over, shared many experiences, learned movement from a Spanish coach, technique from a Russian coach…..and not once was it about country or politics, its only about tennis.

Hartt – I’m betting Indian Wells. But, like you, just a guess. Coco can come to IW.

ATPCup
@ATPCup
A big #ATPCup announcement!
❤️

@atptour
players have made a $725,000 donation to @WWF_Australia
and Nature Recovery Fund as part of the bushfire relief efforts.

And Ulises Blanch wins the Ann Arbor title over the Domincan Republic’s Cid Subervi, who had ousted Kozlov. With Cid Subervi, one of only times I have ever seen the Domincan Republic go beyond Victor Estrella Burgos, the Legend.

And two Caribbean players facing off for a challenger title. Might have to go back to folks like Knowles for that kind of result!

Before we all dismiss team events, keep in mind that the tennis business isn’t interested in what old fogeys like us think. And the fact is that Kyrgios and the millennials are clamoring for team events and shorter matches, match tiebreakers, etc. So tennis will market to them and not to us and the comments on Nick’s social media regarding the ATP Cup were very much in favor of them.

So, I think the calendar has to find a way to fit in maybe 5 or 6 of these in a given year and incorporate it in some form.

Ironically, the most traditional of the team events – Davis Cup – was the least watched and attended. Meanwhile, Laver Cup and ATP Cup were huge hits so it shows that the public is clamoring for something new to watch the sport. Tennis must follow the lead of golf, which has introduced plenty of innovations.

As to team events, yes, players like them, until they complain incessantly about the scheduling (which many players not named Kyrgios have done).

I liked Davis Cup because players had to deal with the elements such as away crowds. Where they build things like resolve in front of hostile audiences. I think it’s too bad, but fine.

Yes, there is something to the team contests. But if players want more team play, they can always enter more doubles. Kyrgios can enter doubles only for tournaments, no one will criticize him and he will have a full crowd in the background.

Tennis will always be an older fan sport. Team stuff won’t do enough to change that.

The only way tennis gets attention from non tennis diehards or young people is superstars. Non tennis folks know Fed, thought young muscle Nadal was cool, follow Serena’s dominance, baby, friendship with Meghan…..and tell them Co Co Gauff is a 15 year old wonder child and they flock to view.

The team stuff may bring out a bit of a local crowd but TV ratings is where the money is. Not many care if Spain plays Serbia.

Superstars, real, manufactured….that moves the needle for tennis. I would think a Gauff match in a major gets way more overall viewers than any team match.

The ATP Cup wasn’t a wild success. It did ok but there were a lot of problems. They bragged about their attendance of 221,000 but didn’t mention that that was over 10 days and three different cities, the time of two normal tournaments.

There was a lot of grumbling about the entry rules and a lot of the players were only Challenger level, which was great for the guys that got to play them, but then others had to play a Top 10 player and the points awarded for winning didn’t properly reflect the caliber of the opposition. The scheduling was really unfair to some of the teams too.

Here’s a bit more of Wertheim’s interview that didn’t make it into the telecast. Personally, I would have used more of this, but it’s his show. 🙂

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rafael-nadal-still-really-likes-playing-tennis-60-minutes-2020-01-12/?ftag=CNM-00-10aab7d&linkId=80518181

Jackson, thanks for the link to the additional info from 60 Minutes. And, as you know, you can’t talk about Rafa without mentioning the big Rafa vs Roger rivalry. It is an intriguing part of his story. 🙂

Scoop, I agree, how can anyone not like Rafa? He is not only a great player but a classy guy.

The 60 Minutes program will introduce him to many people who aren’t tennis fans, so that is great.

Scoop, tennis and figure skating are the only 2 sports that I follow closely, so for “ultimate sports champions” I would just add one name to your list of tennis players – Rod Laver. And also Steffi Graf for winning the Grand Slam and the Olympics in the same calendar year, along with her other tennis achievements, as well as conducting herself with class during the drama surrounding her father.

If you dislike Nadal, you dislike yourself.

Hartt – yes, without BJ and Gladys Heldman women’s tennis would have remained an also-ran in sport, Gladys because she had the contacts and BJ because she went out there and performed at the top of the game amidst personal and cultural turmoil.

I like Djokovic for his honesty. He looks at Federer and Wimbledon performance and says “Federer inspires ME” (not Djokovic words but we get the point!). A match that Djokovic even seems to have lost yet by some trick there he was with the trophy.

Never has a more honest word in tennis been spoken. Let’s credit Djokovic as the man who decided to play it as if he had lost yet was the guy with the trophy at the end. (Furthermore it’s classy because he doesn’t rub in the loss to Federer at the time – he just celebrates long afterwards).

Classy = let your opponent down gently. Just like Osaka when she defeated a certain very young player. If winning is like taking away a player’s favorite (whatever), then winning with good taste is acknowledging that player wanted something you have an making sure you build them back up after ripping them apart.

Andrew – reverting to our previous topic of online tennis sites, I note T-T has pretty much given up the ghost and now publishes purely predictions, stats and a few of the more luscious IGs. Good writing doesn’t come cheap.

Good one, Catherine. I remember something of the sort from logical disjunction studies that if A, then B doesn’t mean necessarily mean if C, then D. Or something like that.

So my theorem was about disliking Nadal. But it doesn’t follow that if you don’t care, ergo you don’t exist or if you like Nadal, ergo you like yourself. You could be full of self-hate and like Nadal, for example.

Phew!