Slams and seedings?

This came up as discussion point on Sky last night by Boris...he thinks they should reduce slams down to 16 seeds not 32 to make the events more interesting?

The theory is that it might allow some guys to go a bit deeper in events than normal.

What do you think - is this fair, or does it potentially put too many big names together early on?

I guess the same theory applies to Masters as well - reduce seeds by half.

I hard him say that and thought at the time that it would be popular with everyone except all the players, all the Slams, and all the TV companies.

He's right though, the first few rounds at all the Slams are completely pointless. Except for Wimbledon 2012.

From a fan of tennis in general's point of view I agree with Boris. It would be interesting to see one of the big guys play someone like Nishikori (or whoever is ranked 17 at the moment) in the 1st round. There would be a lot more interesting match-ups than the usual early round demolotion jobs that normally happen when one of the top players faces someone no one's evr heard of. It's something to think about but I don't think it will ever happen, at least not as the USO.

On the subject of the Masters though, I think it should be cut down to Top 8 only. It might muck-up the number of players participating though.

Yes it makes the slams more procession like at the moment by guiding the top 32. If you reduced the seedings you might end up with a few Chris Lewis's in slam finals though...and I'm not sure thats good for the health of the sport in general.

I'm generally not in favour but there does seem to be a lack of strength of depth at the moment...which comes out of all the discussions we've had on here about convergence given we dont have the specialist players of old, say like Felix Mantilla who could cause a top 5 player real problems at French Open...or someone like Ferreira on grass.

BTW, I really thought Kei would break through...but he needs to develop physically...as Sir Alan would say he's literally too much of a lightweight.

I don't think that you need to do very much with field sizes - if there are too many byes for the reduced number of seeds then they could be allocated during the draw.

I think there are still a couple of specialists out there (clay courters at least) like Starace but they couldn't even cause the best players trouble on their own surface.

I don't think that reducing the number of seeds would make it more difficult for the better players anyway. They are just miles ahead of everyone else.

Agree with these points. Again we face the issue of conditions convergence - the problems of ranking procession is created by it and it cant be fixed by artificial means, nor should it be. Its a populist move by a populist commentator of the game.

An alternative is the introduction of round-robin groups feeding into quarter finals...which has its own pros and cons but I'm not sure that would change anything in current conditions.

I couldn't watch RR really; they get away with it at the WTF but surely nowhere else.

I seem to reall 32 seeds was brought in partly because some good clay players got the hump about being dumped out in the early rounds at Wimbledon because of lack of protection. Anyone else have the same recolelction?

Yes BB the seedings went from 16 to 32 in 2001. It was done because clay players felt the seeding equation for Wimbledon put too much weighting on grass results or rather was biased to grass players - so rather than adjust the equation they expanded the seedings.

Here's more on it here: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/tennis/2001/wimbledon/news/2001/06/18/wimbledon_seeds/

I dont know if the seeding formula at Wimbledon has changed since though.
Since then its been a procession of early rounds by and large - with slowing conditions probably responsible.

It's about protecting the guys who put bums on seats and nobody's about to change that, sadly in my view.

I used to like having 16 seeds in slams and less at other events, you used to get many more upsets and if a top player is beaten fair and square early on so what? It also gives juniors and outsiders a better chance to have a good run and maybe build something on the back of that.

Nowadays it's as if there's been a death in the family if #1-4 aren't lined up in the SF's - the TD's and television co's would have to go out and sell a couple of names to a star-struck public that hasn't heard of them and would rather watch Pop Idol. Can't have that, can we?

Interesting point Barry.
Is it the higher ranked players who put bums on seats or just a very select few.

Is there a case for current seeding approaches ensuring the same guys stay at the top...and the public only only the same group of guys? If more broke through (arguable if lower seeding groups would help) then they might become the ones the public like to follow...kind of an oxymoron.

The current set-up and system more than ever ensures the public only keep seeing the same guys at the top...so they don't know what they might be missing.

It was either Greg or Boris who made a good point yesterday.

Even if Usain Bolt was racing his grandmother, you'd still turn up to see Usain Bolt. It's the same in tennis, or New York at least.

So it's a case of having 4 seeds and to hell with the rest?

I think the 32 is as much about protecting the 4 as anything.

Bottom line, it's another way of suppressing change.

In the FA Cup you can get Manchester United drawing Liverpool in their first match. In fact this happened in 1999. United scraped through with a late winner and went on to lift the trophy. Imagine that in tennis. Djokovic-Nadal in round 1!