*Note: when I talk about rankings, I mean the live rankings when I wrote this article
Earlier this week, I wrote an article blasting Inigo Cervantes for gaming the system and somehow getting a Top 60 ranking on the strength of a bunch of ATP Challenger tournaments on clay, along with offering the ATP solutions to solve the problem. Well, today I want to turn my attention to a similar problem in the WTA. But, I don't want to totally blame Teliana Pereira for her ranking, as at least she is playing WTA Tour-level tournaments, but I want to turn the attention to the mechanisms behind Pereira's ranking and how the WTA enables players to do what has done.
Teliana Pereira, from Brazil, is currently number 50 in the world and she had what, on the surface, seems like a very successful 2015 season. She won two international-level titles last season, in Bogota and Florianapolis, and shot up the rankings, even getting as high 43 in the world in the second half of last year. Pereira seems to a WTA success story, finally breaking through in her mid to later 20's after struggling in her initial days on the WTA Tour. So, what's the problem? Let's dive into the two tournaments she won, for starters.
Let's start by examining her tournament win in Bogota. Pereira started the tournament off by playing the four seed, Francesca Schiavone. Despite being a former French Open champion, Schiavone has really fallen off over the past few years, seemingly playing for a love of the game more than anything else. Schiavone's current ranking is inflated by Florianapolis, but she is currently number 100 in the world, certainly not a world-beater at the moment. Pereira went on to beat qualifier Mandy Minella, currently number 168 in the world, and just like that, she was into the Quarterfinals without having to beat a player currently ranked in the 90s.
Teliana's Quarterfinals match once again showed the weak nature of this tournament, as she took on the present 116 in the world, Lordes Dominguez Lino. Finally in the Semifinals she took on a player with a current ranking in the double digits when she played Elina Svitolina. And while Svitolina is presently number 16 in the world, it is important to note that all of Svitolina's titles have been at the international level and that her best surface is on hard court, not clay (Pereira's best surface is clay). So, while it was a nice win for Teliana, the match was much closer than it originally seemed. And finally, in the Final, remember, this is the Final of a WTA-level tournament, Teliana took on WTA current number 71 Yaroslava Shvedova, winning that match, and the title. This meant that she won the title playing one match against someone currently in the Top 70 and two matches against a player who's live rankings is in the double digits.
Now, let's turn our attention to Florianapolis, because a similar story unfolded there. Teliana played her first match in that tournament (a tight three-setter) against Maria Irigoyen. Irigoyen is number 225 in the live rankings, and mind you that she didn't even have to qualify for this tournament, that is how weak this field is. Pereria then took on Risa Ozaki, the current number 125 in the world to reach the Quarterfinals. Yes, Teliana Pereira got to the Quarterfinals of a tournament without having to beat a player who's live ranking is better than 125 in the world. This is making the Bogota tournament look like Premier Mandatory event! (Not really, but you get the point.)
In the Quarterfinals, Teliana took on the seven seed, Laura Siegemund, presently number 79. Then, in the semis, Pereira played world number 92 (in live rankings), Anastasija Sevastova, meaning that Pereira reached the Final without taking on a player in the Top 75, this unbelievably occurring in a WTA Tour-level tournament. In the Final, Pereira finally played a Top 50 player when she battled current world number 41 Annika Beck. But this meant that Pereira, somehow, some way, won a WTA Title without ever beating someone in the Top 40 and only playing a single Top 75 player. If that isn't a farce, then I don't know what is.
But, if Teliana Pereira was doing great in the majors, then perhaps we can look back that a lot of her points were coming from tournaments with such poor fields and perhaps she deserves her Top 50 ranking, after all. But, this is VERY far from the case. In fact, at the Australian Open, Wimbledon, and US Open, she has never even made the Second Round! This shows an extreme one-dimensional nature to her game, much like Cervantes, and is really a huge discredit to her.
But, her best surface is clay, so she must have made a run to the second week of the French Open at some point, right? Wrong. Teliana has only reached the Second Round at Roland Garros, a pathetic mark for someone who has two WTA-level titles on the dirt. And since winning Florianapolis, Pereira has won a combined nine games in straight set losses to Ekaterina Makarova at the US Open (2015) and Monica Niculescu at the Australian Open this year. While both players are higher ranked than Teliana, just how far she was from winning was disturbing.
So, now that we have established that Pereira's ranking is ridiculous, let's take a look at how the WTA schedules (look specifically at 2015, when Teliana won these titles) allows such "glitch" (as we'll call it) occurs. In regards to Bogota, it's just out of the way when looking at the geographic flow of the WTA calendar. The week before Bogota was a WTA Premier event in Charleston (United States) and an International event, indoor hard court, in Katowice, Poland. Bogota is then the only event in the next week, as many of the top players move from the United States to Europe for the following week's Premier event in Stuttgart and the rest of the clay season following (Madrid is only a couple weeks after Stuttgart). Therefore, if we look at things from a "flow" perception, players are moving east to Europe and Northern Africa (for Marrakech) following Charleston, if they're not already in Europe for Katowice or to practice for the clay court events across the Atlantic. Going south to Bogota just seems out of the way and certainly not a popular option for WTA players.
Florianapolis is also poorly scheduled by the WTA, at least last year (for more info: http://www.tennisforum.com/12-general-messages/907769-wta-florianopolis-goes-deluxe-moves-5*-resort-beach-clay.html) when it was on clay instead of hard. The problem was that, while everyone was making the transition from the western hemisphere, the vast majority of the tour was also moving from clay courts to hard courts as players started preparations for the US Open. In fact, this was the last WTA-level event on clay for the rest of the season. And guess what the last clay event in the western hemisphere was on the WTA Tour? If you guessed Bogota, you would be correct. Clearly this was against the flow of the WTA calendar, as the tour was clearly moving to hard courts.
The WTA, therefore, needs to really look at rescheduling these events (at least last year for Florianapolis) in order to get better fields and better go with the flow of the calendar. There is no reason why Bogota should be where it is on the schedule, as it is just asking for a weak field and "point stealing" as I'm going to call it. I would suggest perhaps moving Bogota to the week before the clay event in Rio De Janeiro to provide at least some continuity in the fact that both events are clay and in South America. As for Florianapolis, as long as it is on a hard court, I believe it's position on the WTA schedule is fine, but they should have really rescheduled it for, perhaps, the week following Rio last year in order to again, provide the continuity that seems to be not present in the scheduling for the WTA.
But, beyond all of this, I am left wondering why a player, like Teliana Pereira, would choose to go against and play in these events? And I am, unfortunately, left with one answer. Players like Pereira know that they can't compete in matches against most of the Top 50 (or even the Top 100, for that matter), so they decide that they would rather play ITF-level fields while picking up WTA-level points.
And, I give a player like Pereira credit. She played this situation perfectly. She got a couple WTA-level titles and got WTA-level points without playing, for the most part, WTA-level competition. Kudos to her. But, this situation is beyond a "point thief" like Teliana Pereira. This is a problem with the WTA schedule.
Showing posts with label Inigo Cervantes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Inigo Cervantes. Show all posts
Saturday, March 5, 2016
Monday, February 29, 2016
Inigo Cervantes' Scheduling Issues and Why The ATP Needs a Rule Change
If you have been an avid follower of my blog, you know that last summer I ripped into Hyeon Chung. Now, I didn't do it because I don't like the guy, nor did I do it because he was playing poorly. I blasted him for artificially padding his ranking by playing in ATP Challenger Tour events in which he was miles better than the competition, and while this gave him what were essentially free ranking points, it wouldn't bode well for him on the main tour.
Well, after writing my article, Chung did slow down, and seemingly stopped playing challengers for good. However, like I predicted, he has struggled on the main tour, despite what "young gun enthusiasts" will tell you. Beginning with the grass season of last year, Chung has only won ten, non-qualifying matches on the main tour, posting a 10-13 record, and failing to make the Semifinals of any non-challenger tournament he has played. Since 2016 started, Chung has won three matches and hasn't won multiple matches in the same tournament. Obviously, how you plan your schedule as you try to make the transition from the main tour from the challenger ranks is very important. Trying to ease your way into the main tour, where you aren't throwing yourself in the fire, yet you are actually making the transition, is an art. And, if you fail to master this art, like Chung did, then you are in for a troublesome transition.
This brings me to Inigo Cervantes. More specifically, I think his scheduling, like Chung, has been horrible. Let's start off with how Inigo Cervantes is somehow currently ranked number 59 in the world. Looking since the beginning of 2014, Inigo has not won an ATP Tour, main-draw match off of clay. In fact, if we qualifying, he has only won five qualifying matches off of the dirt since 2014 began. So, how is this guy ranked number 59 in the world? By virtue of clay court challenger tournaments and, this year, weak ATP 250 fields on the clay too. That, and by playing extremely often.
Just this year alone, for instance, Cervantes has played seven tournaments (the good thing is that none are challengers, but my point remains), the only week when he didn't play was during the second week of the Australian Open. Last season, Cervantes played 32 tournaments, which included 24 ATP Challenger Tour events, of which 21 of those were on clay. In all, Cervantes played 24 events on clay, which accounts for 75% of all tournaments played in 2015. And since he generally went further in the clay court tournaments he played, most of which was against lower level opposition, the ratio of matches on clay to matches on hard/grass is even more stark.
Now, this isn't to say that Inigo was losing in all of these tournaments that he entered in. Cervantes won a ridiculous (by my count) 62 matches last season. This included four challenger titles last year, which is a very impressive feat. However, it is important to note that three of the four Cervantes' titles were either before or right after Wimbledon, so it is a bit odd that Inigo decided not to try to play more ATP Tour 250 level events following all of these victories, instead sticking mostly to the clay court challenger events.
Playing almost exclusively on clay courts at the challenger level, when one's ranking is high enough to at least enter the qualies for 250 events on other surfaces, seems like a handicap and very weird. Also, playing as often as Cervantes played could lead to burnout, and while Cervantes didn't show any signs of burnout when winning the ATP Challenger Tour Finals, perhaps his slower start to 2016 was residue from last season's high workload. Yes, I know he made the semis of the 250 in Sao Paulo, but it's not as if he were beating the Top 10 to get there, as the field in Sao Paulo was laughable. The reason I even decided to write this piece was because I saw Cervantes getting demolished by Pablo Carreno Busta, a guy only seven places ahead of him in the rankings, currently, but playing at level that made him seem 50 spots above Cervantes.
So, why is this a problem? Shouldn't we just be happy for the guy that he is making a career for himself playing tennis? Well, yes and no. I will admit, Cervantes is manipulating the system brilliantly, just like Chung also has. I will give Cervantes credit, at least the challenger fields he has played have solid clay court players entered, which we cannot say the same for the Asian challengers that Chung entered last year. However, that doesn't excuse the fact that they are just that, challenger tournaments. The design of ATP Tour is supposed to work is that a player is supposed to have to qualify for ATP Futures Tour events, then get direct entry into the futures tournaments until they can try to qualify for challengers, and then get into the main draw of challengers until they can qualify for 250 events, and at that point trying to make the full jump into the "major leagues" and get direct entry into 250 events.
However, I believe Cervantes gamed the system, but ultimately hurt himself, by making the jump too late. He hung out on the challenger circuit for all of last year, fairly easily accumulating points and building his ranking up well into the Top 100. But, because Cervantes has never really challenged himself with consistently trying to qualify for ATP World Tour events and try to gradually make the transition to the main tour, he has for the most part hopped the "trying to qualify for 250 events" stage of the process, and because of this, I believe he has bitten off more than he can chew. Before boosting his stats this week at an event in which two of his three opponents were ranked over number 90 in the world, and an extremely (what was essentially a) 50-50 win over Delbonis being his other victory, Cervantes started out the year going 3-7 with only two main-draw victories. On hard court, Cervantes went 1-4 and didn't a main draw match.
This brings me to my next point. Besides boosting his ranking with challengers, how does Inigo expect to be successful on the main tour by almost exclusively playing on clay and by largely ignoring the most popular surface on the main tour: hard court. The scheduling just doesn't make sense to me. Yes, I get it, Cervantes is much more comfortable on clay than any other surface. However, as he saw his ranking rising, it would make a lot of sense for him to start at least giving hard courts a shot for ATP 250 events on hard courts. Going to an event like ATP Atlanta or ATP Winston Salem would not only give him a chance to warm up for the US Open, in which the money is too big for Cervantes to pass up, but would also help ease the transition onto the main tour. I know that becoming a grass courter is extremely unlikely for Inigo, but it seems self-mutilating for him to largely ignore hard courts for much of last year.
And the effects of him ignoring hard courts last year are seen this year when he can barely win a match on a hard court. Cervantes' only win on hard this year has come against (currently) world number 185 Luke Saville and other than that, Inigo is finding is extremely tough to even win a qualifying match for a ATP 250 event.
In addition, like I mentioned earlier, it has also been foolish of Cervantes to play as many tournaments as he has played. 32 tournaments is a ton of match play, and given the start to this year, Inigo is not planning on slowing down. When you play as often as Inigo does, wear-and-tear starts to occur, and if Cervantes is not more careful in the future, the stress he is putting on his body could lead to full-blown injury which is extremely damaging to his career. However, his huge amounts of matchplay indicate to me that he is not confident that he can maintain his ranking without it, and thus I suspect it will continue, as Inigo knows that he is not good enough to go even deep in most of the tournaments he is playing (again, I suspect Sao Paulo to be an outlier when all is set and done), and thus will continue pushing his body until it gives out.
So, is there anything the ATP can do to avoid having rankings inflated like Cervantes has now (and that Chung had last year)? I believe there is action that can be taken, and I think a rule change is desperately needed. I believe I have come up with a solution to these issues. I think that a good new rule would be that if a player wins a certain number of challenger event tournaments (and the same could be applied to futures events too, but I am just focusing on challengers), say two or three, in a given year, then if their rankings allows them to enter ATP 250 qualifying events, then they should be banned from challenger events for a month or two and only allowed to enter main tour events. The "if the ranking allows them" clause gives fast-risers like Taylor Fritz time to move up the rankings before being barred from challenger events and exceptions can be made to this rule in extraordinary circumstances (which Cervantes certainly doesn't have).
I also think that there should be disincentives for playing almost exclusively on one surface. Yes, this is a radical idea, but I think it is necessary in order to produce more well-rounded players on tour, or at least players who are more respectful of the tour. I believe that players who are entered into a major should be fined for playing on a different surface in their tournament before playing a major. So, when a guy like Cervantes (or more blatantly Delbonis) disrespect Wimbledon by not only not playing a grass warmup tournament, but by their last tournament before Wimbledon being on clay, which anyone who knows tennis realizes are extremely different surfaces.
And finally, I believe that there should be incentives in place to reward players for gaining a certain amount of ranking points while playing less tournaments. This would give players a reward for really focusing in on tournaments that are important to them instead of just putting their names down on entry lists and playing as many tournaments as they possibly can. And while it wouldn't hurt players for playing a huge number of tournaments, it might make them think twice before putting their name down on another entry list.
Now, I don't want to make this issue seem like it's exclusive to Cervantes. In addition to Chung, someone like Daniel Munoz De La Nava is also guilt for the similar manipulation of the ATP Tour and poor scheduling. However, Cervantes is the best example of this problem, as he is ranked inside of the top 60, and I think it is more than fair to call him on what he's done.
Because, it's quite obvious, Inigo Cervantes should not be the 59th ranked tennis player in the world.
Well, after writing my article, Chung did slow down, and seemingly stopped playing challengers for good. However, like I predicted, he has struggled on the main tour, despite what "young gun enthusiasts" will tell you. Beginning with the grass season of last year, Chung has only won ten, non-qualifying matches on the main tour, posting a 10-13 record, and failing to make the Semifinals of any non-challenger tournament he has played. Since 2016 started, Chung has won three matches and hasn't won multiple matches in the same tournament. Obviously, how you plan your schedule as you try to make the transition from the main tour from the challenger ranks is very important. Trying to ease your way into the main tour, where you aren't throwing yourself in the fire, yet you are actually making the transition, is an art. And, if you fail to master this art, like Chung did, then you are in for a troublesome transition.
This brings me to Inigo Cervantes. More specifically, I think his scheduling, like Chung, has been horrible. Let's start off with how Inigo Cervantes is somehow currently ranked number 59 in the world. Looking since the beginning of 2014, Inigo has not won an ATP Tour, main-draw match off of clay. In fact, if we qualifying, he has only won five qualifying matches off of the dirt since 2014 began. So, how is this guy ranked number 59 in the world? By virtue of clay court challenger tournaments and, this year, weak ATP 250 fields on the clay too. That, and by playing extremely often.
Just this year alone, for instance, Cervantes has played seven tournaments (the good thing is that none are challengers, but my point remains), the only week when he didn't play was during the second week of the Australian Open. Last season, Cervantes played 32 tournaments, which included 24 ATP Challenger Tour events, of which 21 of those were on clay. In all, Cervantes played 24 events on clay, which accounts for 75% of all tournaments played in 2015. And since he generally went further in the clay court tournaments he played, most of which was against lower level opposition, the ratio of matches on clay to matches on hard/grass is even more stark.
Now, this isn't to say that Inigo was losing in all of these tournaments that he entered in. Cervantes won a ridiculous (by my count) 62 matches last season. This included four challenger titles last year, which is a very impressive feat. However, it is important to note that three of the four Cervantes' titles were either before or right after Wimbledon, so it is a bit odd that Inigo decided not to try to play more ATP Tour 250 level events following all of these victories, instead sticking mostly to the clay court challenger events.
Playing almost exclusively on clay courts at the challenger level, when one's ranking is high enough to at least enter the qualies for 250 events on other surfaces, seems like a handicap and very weird. Also, playing as often as Cervantes played could lead to burnout, and while Cervantes didn't show any signs of burnout when winning the ATP Challenger Tour Finals, perhaps his slower start to 2016 was residue from last season's high workload. Yes, I know he made the semis of the 250 in Sao Paulo, but it's not as if he were beating the Top 10 to get there, as the field in Sao Paulo was laughable. The reason I even decided to write this piece was because I saw Cervantes getting demolished by Pablo Carreno Busta, a guy only seven places ahead of him in the rankings, currently, but playing at level that made him seem 50 spots above Cervantes.
So, why is this a problem? Shouldn't we just be happy for the guy that he is making a career for himself playing tennis? Well, yes and no. I will admit, Cervantes is manipulating the system brilliantly, just like Chung also has. I will give Cervantes credit, at least the challenger fields he has played have solid clay court players entered, which we cannot say the same for the Asian challengers that Chung entered last year. However, that doesn't excuse the fact that they are just that, challenger tournaments. The design of ATP Tour is supposed to work is that a player is supposed to have to qualify for ATP Futures Tour events, then get direct entry into the futures tournaments until they can try to qualify for challengers, and then get into the main draw of challengers until they can qualify for 250 events, and at that point trying to make the full jump into the "major leagues" and get direct entry into 250 events.
However, I believe Cervantes gamed the system, but ultimately hurt himself, by making the jump too late. He hung out on the challenger circuit for all of last year, fairly easily accumulating points and building his ranking up well into the Top 100. But, because Cervantes has never really challenged himself with consistently trying to qualify for ATP World Tour events and try to gradually make the transition to the main tour, he has for the most part hopped the "trying to qualify for 250 events" stage of the process, and because of this, I believe he has bitten off more than he can chew. Before boosting his stats this week at an event in which two of his three opponents were ranked over number 90 in the world, and an extremely (what was essentially a) 50-50 win over Delbonis being his other victory, Cervantes started out the year going 3-7 with only two main-draw victories. On hard court, Cervantes went 1-4 and didn't a main draw match.
This brings me to my next point. Besides boosting his ranking with challengers, how does Inigo expect to be successful on the main tour by almost exclusively playing on clay and by largely ignoring the most popular surface on the main tour: hard court. The scheduling just doesn't make sense to me. Yes, I get it, Cervantes is much more comfortable on clay than any other surface. However, as he saw his ranking rising, it would make a lot of sense for him to start at least giving hard courts a shot for ATP 250 events on hard courts. Going to an event like ATP Atlanta or ATP Winston Salem would not only give him a chance to warm up for the US Open, in which the money is too big for Cervantes to pass up, but would also help ease the transition onto the main tour. I know that becoming a grass courter is extremely unlikely for Inigo, but it seems self-mutilating for him to largely ignore hard courts for much of last year.
And the effects of him ignoring hard courts last year are seen this year when he can barely win a match on a hard court. Cervantes' only win on hard this year has come against (currently) world number 185 Luke Saville and other than that, Inigo is finding is extremely tough to even win a qualifying match for a ATP 250 event.
In addition, like I mentioned earlier, it has also been foolish of Cervantes to play as many tournaments as he has played. 32 tournaments is a ton of match play, and given the start to this year, Inigo is not planning on slowing down. When you play as often as Inigo does, wear-and-tear starts to occur, and if Cervantes is not more careful in the future, the stress he is putting on his body could lead to full-blown injury which is extremely damaging to his career. However, his huge amounts of matchplay indicate to me that he is not confident that he can maintain his ranking without it, and thus I suspect it will continue, as Inigo knows that he is not good enough to go even deep in most of the tournaments he is playing (again, I suspect Sao Paulo to be an outlier when all is set and done), and thus will continue pushing his body until it gives out.
So, is there anything the ATP can do to avoid having rankings inflated like Cervantes has now (and that Chung had last year)? I believe there is action that can be taken, and I think a rule change is desperately needed. I believe I have come up with a solution to these issues. I think that a good new rule would be that if a player wins a certain number of challenger event tournaments (and the same could be applied to futures events too, but I am just focusing on challengers), say two or three, in a given year, then if their rankings allows them to enter ATP 250 qualifying events, then they should be banned from challenger events for a month or two and only allowed to enter main tour events. The "if the ranking allows them" clause gives fast-risers like Taylor Fritz time to move up the rankings before being barred from challenger events and exceptions can be made to this rule in extraordinary circumstances (which Cervantes certainly doesn't have).
I also think that there should be disincentives for playing almost exclusively on one surface. Yes, this is a radical idea, but I think it is necessary in order to produce more well-rounded players on tour, or at least players who are more respectful of the tour. I believe that players who are entered into a major should be fined for playing on a different surface in their tournament before playing a major. So, when a guy like Cervantes (or more blatantly Delbonis) disrespect Wimbledon by not only not playing a grass warmup tournament, but by their last tournament before Wimbledon being on clay, which anyone who knows tennis realizes are extremely different surfaces.
And finally, I believe that there should be incentives in place to reward players for gaining a certain amount of ranking points while playing less tournaments. This would give players a reward for really focusing in on tournaments that are important to them instead of just putting their names down on entry lists and playing as many tournaments as they possibly can. And while it wouldn't hurt players for playing a huge number of tournaments, it might make them think twice before putting their name down on another entry list.
Now, I don't want to make this issue seem like it's exclusive to Cervantes. In addition to Chung, someone like Daniel Munoz De La Nava is also guilt for the similar manipulation of the ATP Tour and poor scheduling. However, Cervantes is the best example of this problem, as he is ranked inside of the top 60, and I think it is more than fair to call him on what he's done.
Because, it's quite obvious, Inigo Cervantes should not be the 59th ranked tennis player in the world.
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