Best of Five Set Masters Finals: Let's Bring Them Back

Novak Djokovic wins Monte Carlo

Back in 2012 I wrote an article for Eurosport asking whether some Masters finals on the ATP tour should be restored to best of five sets.  

I think Masters tournaments are in need of a shake up. The dichotomy is that if I were to contact the ATP now, they would tell me how well the tournaments are doing, how much success they have had and how much money they generate, and there would be no need to change anything.  They would also think I am out of my mind but would probably be too polite to say it.

But precisely the reasons why the ATP do not think there needs to be change, are the reasons there needs to be change.  There is no doubt in my mind that Masters finals exclusively becoming best of three sets has stifled competition and kept those at the top, at the top.  Why?

There are a host of reasons for this.  The first thing to say is when best of five sets were jettisoned in 2007, it coincided with a big increase in ranking points apportioned to masters, grand slams and the end of year ATP World Tour Finals. It has become inherently difficult if not almost impossible to dislodge the top players or win some of the big titles on offer.  But to the matter of the Masters finals first. Before 2008 best of five occurred in seven of the nine tournaments:  Those events were Indian Wells, Miami, Monte Carlo, Italian Open, Hamburg, Paris Bercy and the end of year championships.  Also, many smaller tournaments on the ATP calendar had best of five finals.  In the case of Indian Wells and Miami, when Indian Wells was best of five, Miami would be best of three; then the next year Indian Wells would be best of three and Miami best of five, and so on.  This was one of the reasons the Indian Wells Miami double was so prestigious and so difficult to attain.  Pre the change to best of three sets, only Jim Courier, Michael Chang, Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Marcelo Rios and Roger Federer did the double in the same year. 

However, since the change to best of three set finals, the top players can afford to only play the Masters and not really participate on the rest of the tour other than a very few tourneys such as the Dubai championships.  Whereas in the past you would see the number 1 player in venues like Marseille, Rotterdam, Los Angeles, Lyon, Vienna and other smaller tournaments, today you will find Novak Djokovic only needs to play the Masters tournaments, Dubai, Asian hardcourt tournaments in September and that’s about it.  As Djokovic wins the majority of the Masters tournaments and is so far ahead in the rankings, he can be completely refreshed for all of the grand slam tournaments, in fact, he doesn’t even need to play warm up tournaments before the Australian Open or Wimbledon.  It is also gives the impression there are two tours taking place, one for the very elite who do not have to play many events other than the Masters series, and the rest where they have to pick up titles and points at the smaller events like Rotterdam or Valencia.  It is also worth noting how many of the smaller tournaments have fallen off the calendar since 2007.  Los Angeles, Estoril, Washington, San Jose, Indianapolis have all left, Japan is now played in September and Beijing has been added along with the China Open, I imagine Djokovic plays Beijing, China Open and Dubai due to the more prize money and prestige they offer. 

This two tier system now in place maybe great for the elite players and the marketing men in the ATP, but I don’t think it is good for tennis in general.  The cause and effect is this; as I mentioned earlier, Djokovic by only playing a small select number of tournaments can stay fresh for the grand slam tournaments, which in turn allows him to stay at the top as he always gets to the latter stages.  Meanwhile the next generation of Raonic, Dimitrov, Nishikori and others have been unable to break through substantially.  The likes of Tsonga, Berdych, Monfils have been beaten physically and mentally.  Wawrinka has had success breaking through to win the Australian Open and Monte Carlo in 2014 then Rotterdam in February but has remained inconsistent.  Marin Cilic has not performed at all since winning the US Open last September.  

The Masters count is also getting confused and I would venture to say is now becoming meaningless.  Djokovic won his 23rd Masters title at the Monte Carlo event recently, nearly all of those would have come in best of three set finals.  Federer and Nadal are also both over 20 Masters wins but started winning Masters titles when finals were best of five sets.  Federer and Nadal were involved in memorable five set finals against each other and other opponents like Guillermo Coria and David Nalbandian.  There is no question it is possible to rack up the title wins, Djokovic could be looking at 40 Masters wins before his career is over.  The reason being they have the feel of any other ATP final, other than the fact they offer more prize money and play in a bigger stadium.

To put this into perspective, there are nine tournaments of this calibre every year, a lot of finals not to recall many memorable moments.  The last two Indian Wells finals between Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic have been very good, as was the 2013 final of between Novak Djokovic and Juan Martin Del Potro.  Prior to the change in 2007, there were many memorable matches to call on, some still talked about up to this day.  As for the end of year World Tour finals, the best final took place in 2011 between Federer and Tsonga but that was four years ago.

The argument of tiredness no longer applies.  With the points system currently in place, as long as the top players go far in the big events, there is no need to play a huge amount of small events; consequently players can be fresh for a select number of five set finals if they were restored.  The Indian Premier League took place over an extended period in the close season and players often manage to play exhibitions during the season; there can be no excuse not to play best of five finals at Masters level.

Now is as good a time to reconsider introducing best of five set finals at select tournaments at Masters level on the ATP tour.  Currently Masters finals do not offer value for money for the punter or viewer on pay television; the system needs a shake up.

2015 WTA Season Needs More Competition

Serena Williams wins Miami

So, another weekend and another win for Serena Williams.  Serena won her eighth title last Saturday in Miami with a 6:2 6:0 victory over Carla Suarez Navarro, who was playing in her first Masters final.  We were all expecting a routine win but even I would not have predicted such a quick and easy victory.

It appears to be getting relatively easier for Serena to win tennis tournaments the older she gets; usually it is the other way as it supposed to be more difficult the older a player becomes.  In fact, barring Venus Williams, every one of Serena’s rivals from her generation are retired and doing different things.  That includes Martina Hingis, Lindsay Davenport, Justine Henin, Kim Clijsters, Amelie Mauresmo and Jennifer Capriati.  Remarkable indeed and let’s not forget Serena has won twelve major titles since 2008.    

While this is all great news for Serena and her supporters, 2015 is so far proving to be a non-event on the WTA tour.  The players who are expected to challenge have not made a serious impression so far and Victoria Azarenka is just not competitive at this stage after being out for much of 2014 with injuries.  The only player who has stepped up is Simona Halep who won Indian Wells two weeks ago and lost to Serena in the semifinal in Miami in three sets.  However, I haven’t changed my view that Simona needs to add quite a few more things to her game if she wants to become a grand slam champion.  Striking the ball cleanly shot after shot after shot is not enough; she needs to start going to net to win points; develop a proper transition game and take more chances; right now she is too risk averse.

Let us look in more detail at the other top players.  I haven’t heard Petra Kvitova’s name mentioned for a period of time.  That is due to the fact she pulled out of both Indian Wells and Miami citing injury and perhaps exhaustion as well.  Petra is due to play for the Czech Republic in the semifinal of the Fed cup later this month, a commitment she always takes seriously.  Then there is Maria Sharapova.  Maria did make it through to the final of the Australian Open and it was always going to be difficult for her to defeat Serena.  Since then Maria has not made an impression in the mini indoor season and was knocked out early in both Indian Wells and Miami.  In the last few years Maria has had a very strong claycourt season so there is an opportunity for her to make her move; Maria is defending champion in both Madrid and Roland Garros. 

Caroline Wozniacki rounds out the current top five and Ana Ivanovic is up to number six in the world, Agnieszka Radwanska has dropped out of the top five altogether and is now number 8 in the world rankings.  Wozniacki and Ivanovic are the interesting players here; both former world number 1 players and have struggled mightily in recent times.  Even though Wozniacki made it to the final of the US Open in 2014, neither player has shown they are consistent contenders for big titles.  In Ivanovic’s case, she has been a non-factor at both grand slam tournaments and premier WTA events since 2008 so it is surprising she has made it so high up the rankings.  Eugenie Bouchard, Ekaterina Makarov and Andrea Petkovic comprise the rest of the top 10.

Sloane Stephens, Madison Keys and Eugenie Bouchard are considered the up and coming players.  Sloane Stephens is yet to win a tournament of any description on the WTA tour.  Madison Keys showed in the Australia Open she has grand slam potential by beating Venus and running Serena close in the semifinal; but is still not quite ready as makes too many unforced errors.  Eugenie Bouchard has gone off the boil for the moment. 

Therefore, looking at the WTA right now, there are no players to frighten Serena Williams.  Compared to the players from her generation, the standard is not quite there.  A lot of the arguments have been played out on forums and other outlets as to why that might be the case but for me looking at the participants at the top, everyone plays the same way and there is not enough conviction to do something different.  Halep is a good indicator, the player people are looking to but there is not enough variety in her game to trouble Serena over a series of matches until she adds vital elements.

Now that the early season indoor and outdoor hardcourts tournaments have ended and we move into the clay and grass period of the calendar, this may be the moment where the WTA gets interesting and we see more competition.  The WTA really needs the players to step up and provide the fans with better entertainment.

Tim Henman's Sampras dilemma

 Recently ex tennis player Tim Henman gave his views on what has been the never-ending Roger Federer Pete Sampras debate.  Now this has been done to death since 2004 in the media and on tennis forums long before Federer broke Sampras’ records and long since Federer broke Sampras’ records. 

What surprised me was that Henman, a guy who played both was so willing to give an opinion on an otherwise worn argument.  Henman was in Kolkata India as an ambassador for the HSBC road to Wimbledon tournament.  And he was asked the question:  Having played against both Pete Sampras and Roger Federer, who would you pick as the better player?  This was Henman’s answer:

Yeah, I played Pete when he was world No. 1. He was an incredible player, that's why he won 14 Grand Slams. 

When he served well, he was at the top of his game. But Roger has a better all-round game and plays at a high level all the time. He has a great first and second serve, plays aggressively from the back of the court and has a better return game. To beat Federer, you've got to be at your best. 

Now for a Federer fan that would be seen as a great reply, but for everyone else, the comment does not really seem to make any sense.  The initial observation I would make is; what was Sampras doing and how did he win 14 grand slam tournaments?  Apparently according to Henman, Federer plays at a high level all of the time.  By implication, Sampras did not play at a high level all of the time.  Also, Federer has a great first and second serve and plays aggressively from the back.  If he wasn’t referring to Federer I would have sworn he was talking about Sampras.

But of course, we know no player can play at a high level all of the time, whether it be injuries or crisis of confidence.  In 2013 Federer was knocked out in the 2nd round of Wimbledon as defending champion and the 4th round of the US Open; it happens to everyone.  As Federer is a great player he was able to bounce back in 2014. 

I see quite a few idiosyncrasies with Henman’s comments about Sampras’ game because it is not the first time Henman has made comments along these lines and it certainly will not be the last.  The idiosyncrasies are these: first of all, whenever Henman talks about Sampras’ game he makes what amounts to be very vague statements without getting into any specifics.  I find this slightly surprising considering he played Sampras seven times including two major semifinals at Wimbledon.  Plus on quite a few occasions they were doubles partners and practised a lot together.

I would expect Henman to be able to go into specifics about the Sampras return of serve or his strategy, what he was trying to do out there on the court.  Or, I would expect Henman to talk about Sampras’ movement.  But alas we never seem to get any insights from Henman on these types of interesting facets of their rivalry.  If we are talking about one of the most well known names in the history of the game who was number 1 for 286 weeks, I would really expect to hear a lot more than when he served well, he was at the top of his game. 

This leads to another issue, the head to head with Sampras.  I don’t think this should be taken out of the equation.  They played seven times and the head to head was six to one in Sampras’ favour.  In fact, the only time Henman beat Sampras was their last meeting in the quarterfinal of the 2000 Cincinnati Masters. I recall the Sun newspaper making a big deal out of it as Sampras was certainly Henman’s nemesis.  Apparently Henman also scored a win over Sampras in 1996 in Rotterdam which was a walkover so they didn’t play the match.  Interesting score lines to note include their first meeting in Tokyo 1994 which was an easy 6-1 6-2 win.  Then there is the 1998 Vienna quarterfinal which finished 6-0 6-3.  Henman was broken five times but didn’t create a break point himself.  Then of course the two famous semifinals of 1998 and 1999 when it appeared Henman was getting really close to the breakthrough, especially in 1999 after Henman ran Sampras close in the Queens final.  Henman took the first set and Sampras was feeling the pressure but was able to turn it around, as Pat Cash noted by taking control of the Henman 2nd serve with good returns and passing shots. 

Henman often partners John McEnroe during Wimbledon on BBC phone in Six Love Six on Radio Five live and has been quoted as saying Sampras doesn’t return well and you could always get him to a tiebreak.  In fact, Henman is quoted here from 2009 as saying  Sampras never really returned that well, so as long as you were being disciplined on your serve, you could stay in touch, get to a tie-break and then anything can happen.  Again this is Henman’s opinion and he has a right to it but rather interestingly, in the seven matches they played only three sets went to tiebreaks with Sampras winning two of those, one in 1995 Wimbledon and 1999 Queens final in the third set.  In neither of the Wimbledon semifinals was Henman able to engage Sampras in a tiebreak.  My question would be, what happened?  On the flip side, Henman has a decent head to head with Federer; seven to six in Federer’s favour and Henman won most of the early encounters including the 2001 Wimbledon quarterfinal, his attacking game initially gave Federer a lot of trouble.

This rather curious attitude to Sampras and his game extends beyond Henman but permeates through quite a few of the ex British players.  I think we all know that Greg Rusedski has been less than complimentary about Sampras even when they were playing the game.  In 1995 Rusedski pronounced he would defeat Sampras at Wimbledon even though Sampras was defending champion; Rusedski went on to lose in straight sets……  Then there was the infamous incident in 2002 when Sampras defeated Rusedski in five sets at the third round of the US Open, Rusedski went into the press conference predicting Sampras would not win another match and was a step and a half slow.  The perfect team talk which Sampras used to fire him up and win the tournament taking out top 10 players Haas, Roddick and Agassi in the later rounds. 

That curiousness extended to when Federer broke the grand slam record in 2009 and Rusedski pronounced almost in glee that the only thing Sampras did better was the 2nd serve.  Again it is worth looking at the head to head between the two men, which reads nine to one, the only victory being a surprising win for Rusedski in the 1998 Paris Bercy final in straight sets (best of five).  The 2000 Miami encounter is fun because Sampras gave Rusedski a tennis lesson.

Therefore, Sampras has a combined record of 15 wins to 2 losses (not counting the walkover).  I wonder if there is an element of being “punch drunk” in the comments that these guys continue to make; in other words subconsciously not wanting to give Sampras his due especially over them and most of the field he had to play.  After all Sampras beat both players in a variety of ways ranging from totally outplaying them to taking those really close encounters which probably hurt more.  Rusedski let it show brazenly in 2002 but with Henman I get the impression it manifests itself in different ways.

Being vague does two things; the first is it is bland and the second thing it does is create doubt on what his true opinions are.   Therefore, I would end by saying Tim Henman should really be more magnanimous in his attitude towards Sampras.  And for certain, it would be good in the future to hear more insightful comments when the questions are put to him. 

2015 Australian Open Round Up

So, the Australian Open finishes for another year and two familiar faces have won the event.  Twelve months on that is quite a different scenario to 2014.

This time last year Li Na defeated Dominica Cibulkova in a fun three set final, and a big upset occurred when Stan Wawrinka defeated Rafael Nadal to claim the mens trophy.  I recall Pete Sampras who travelled to Australia to hand over the trophy looking on in some bemusement during the presentation ceremony, having fully expected Rafael Nadal to equal his tally of fourteen major championships. But Warwinka had other ideas, coming out swinging in the first set and hitting second serves at 110mph in the corners, taking risks to win.

Bottom line was it was a great start to the year to have two new Australian open winners and it really set up the mens year nicely culminating with another first time winner at the US Open in Marin Cilic.

2015 has not started as excitingly as 2014 (unless you are a fan of Serena or Novak).  Serena completed her customary win over Maria Sharapova to win her 19th major title and go past Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert in the slam count.  Maria Sharapova did put up a great fight in the second set but we all knew (well surely most of us) that it was just delaying the inevitable and Serena would win anyway.  Match point was amusing as Serena thought she hit an ace only for it to be called a let, and then she stepped up and hit the ace in exactly the same spot!  As for the mens final, it looked close until inexplicably Murray started acting like a spoilt brat midway through the third set and permanently handed the initiative to Djokovic.  The fall out has been that Murray claimed he was distracted by Djokovic’s antics of appearing injured and then recovering at various points.  If that’s true it is not very professional by Murray; meanwhile our “Best of British” press got excited as usual by a non-story and ran it for a few days.

What are the implications for the rest of the season for the WTA and ATP tour and the majors?  Well taking one tour at a time, it tells us that even at the ripe old age of 33 going on 34; Serena Williams is still the player to beat.  As long as I have been watching tennis, I have never seen a player dominate in their 30s.  There also does not seem to be any real challengers either.  Madison Keys definitely seems a prospect for the future but at this stage as is always the case with a young player, we have no idea whether she will become a champion, just to wait and see while we watch her improve her game; but she definitely has big potential.

Petra Kvitova flattered to deceive again, losing to Keys in the third round of the Australian Open.  Petra has stated she wants to be number 1 but obviously she has to be consistent at all of the tournaments, and she is still too inconsistent to be able to claim number 1 right now.  This could be the year Serena finally gets within touching distance of Steffi Graf’s 22 majors.  Sharapova will be a contender to win the French and Kvitova at Wimbledon but I cannot think of any other contenders at this stage.  The year is early of course and that could change. 

In the mens side, I hope the optimism of 2014 where we saw two new grand slam champions does not disappear.  In the 2014 Australian final, despite Nadal’s injury during the 2nd set, the final provided riveting and compelling viewing, not least because of Warwinka’s great shotmaking and risk taking.  This year I thought Warwinka would beat Djokovic in the semifinal and defend his title but that didn’t prove to be the case and again Djokovic has proved too strong mentally and physically.  The final itself was in danger of been another five hour dual until Murray blew and that was that.  Murray has now played in eight major finals since 2008, and incredibly I have seen no improvement in his 2nd serve delivery between then and now.  Hence, his % of points won on his 2nd serve was under 40% again and is quite frankly doomed to keep losing finals until he makes real adjustments to his game and mentality.  His coach Amelie Mauresmo also said during a BBC interview at last year’s US open that she does like his brattish behaviour when things are not going right. 

What we also learned is once again, match ups are vital in tennis.  Wawrinka’s game matches up well with Djokovic making for a great spectacle.  However, the final was not a spectacle but a war of attrition and who can physically last.  It is highly possible that Nadal will win the French; either Djokovic, Murray, Federer or Nadal for Wimbledon and maybe a couple of extra guys contend the US Open.  We also saw that neither Raonic, Nishikori nor Dimitrov have what it takes to win at this stage.  In Dimitrov’s match against Murray, he could only sustain attacking tennis for the first three games before becoming inconsistent and incoherent for the remainder of the match, having no discernible game plan on dealing with the Murray 2nd serve.  Meanwhile Raonic lost easily again to a top 4 player (Djokovic).  To give themselves confidence for the majors, these guys really need to win one of the Masters titles on offer which of course would be a first for any of them.

So, 2015 starts with the old faces winning their fifth and sixth Australian Open titles respectively.  Not the same start as 2014 where we had two first time winners, let us hope we have a great year of tennis but with some new winners in both the mens and womens game.