Carnage on the courts
You may not have noticed but it has been mayhem these past few days in SW19. Take a quick look at both the ladies’ and the gentlemen’s draws: they both look much like my garden after the pigeons have descended – seedless.
Of the 64 seeds, men and women, who started out with high hopes and clean socks on the first Monday, 14 have departed in tears and a taxi from the ladies’ singles (six of them from the top 10) closely followed by 17 (with five of them being from the top 10) from the gentlemen’s singles. And that was by the end of Day Four. Good grief. That’s not mayhem, that’s carnage.
The whole point about seeding players is to make sure that they hang around a bit longer in the competition. The idea is that the best players are “seeded” through the draw to make sure that they don’t all play each other in the first couple of rounds. That way you don’t end up a huge clump of roses in one section and a scorched earth policy in another (we are back to my garden again). And, in theory, the players will live up to their billing and all 32 of them will make their way to the round of 32 – or the third round, as it is also known.
The problem is that professional sportspersons – we are not limiting this to just tennis – seldom do as they are told. Look at that other sporting event that seems to be attracting attention in Russia (the sport that dare not speak its name): when we were still in the heady days of the build up to said event, everyone wrote off the Russia team. Even the Russians.
Yards of column space was filled in publications from Rostov-on-Don to Nizhny Novgorod (and their Evening Bugle and Happy Shopper is a particularly good read) claiming that the home nation had not got a snowball on Centre Court’s chance of progressing. So what did Russia do? They started off with a 5-0 thrashing of Saudi Arabia and now play Croatia for a place in the semi-finals. That is the joy of sport for you, regardless of the discipline.
Back in the old days, when I was but a cub reporter, there were only 16 seeds at the Grand Slams which meant that the big names had to face only marginally less big names from the very first day. The result, especially at Wimbledon where the grass courts wrong-footed many a superstar, made our last few days look quite normal. And as of next year, we will revert to 16 seeds – so get used to this, folks.
The move to 32 seeds came in 2001 and was greeted warmly by the players (particularly those not hugely at home on a grass court) and television alike. Those in Telly Land were delighted at the thought that more of their marquee players would be helped along towards the second week by a seeded berth.
Yet for every upside, there is a downside. And the downside to having 32 seeds was that (dare we say this?) some of the first weeks at some of the Grand Slams were slightly less than spine-tinglingly exciting. Just a wee bit. And only at some of them. And only sometimes. (Phew, I think we got away with that.) It has to be said, there was a fair amount of drumming of fingers on tables waiting for something to happen.
Federer was No.17 seed - and won
But the move back to 16 seeds has its detractors, too. You are the world No.17, you have worked yourself narrow to get there and you are drawn to play Roger Federer in the first round. You are not happy. Or, you are Roger Federer, the defending champion, and you begin the defence of your title against Kyle Edmund (he being the current world No.17). You are still not happy.
Except that the lovely Rodge is a sensible man. When he came back from a six-month break to let his knee heal, he found himself seeded at No.17, a position he had not been in for 16 years. And the draw pitted him against Kei Nishikori in the fourth round, Stan Wawrinka in the semi-finals and Rafa Nadal in the final – all of whom required five sets to beat. A tough ask for a man with a recently gammy knee. But did Rodge mind? Not at all. It was a good draw, he said, because he was in the draw. He had not thought that possible just a matter of months before.
So you pays your money and you takes your choice. With 32 seeds in the draw, we have had mayhem this past few days. Next year, with 16 seeds, we will have more mayhem in the early rounds. That is because this is professional sport: all 128 men and women on the draw sheet want to win and will bust a gut to do so. The results are totally and utterly unpredictable. And that is why we love it.
