[SAISAI-GOAT]

Originally Posted by Jimmie48

Nonsense. It's the empty stadium that makes it seem empty. Please stop hyping up this awful event, nobody cares.

and you should stop trying to damage the reputation of this 5th Slam

Originally Posted by ZeroSumGame

Crowds in China are non-existent, so what's your point?

I already said my point in my opening post:

LOW CROWD + $$$$$ >>>>> LOW CROWD + NO $$$$$

[flareon]

5th slam last time I checked Miami was filling it stands and the atmosphere was awesome.


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[GoofyDuck]

Beijing last year had good crowd though, so did Guangzhou

Especially in comparison with 8th GS Madrid

[flareon]

The atmosphere in Paris right now, Beijing could never


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[Wiggly]

It's hard to succeed when your first seed is Sara Errani, someone who was an unknown journeywoman a year ago.

Barthel vs Mladenovic
Errani ver Bertens

That's hardly a dream line-up for a Premier.

[babsi]

Originally Posted by Wiggly

It's hard to succeed when your first seed is Sara Errani, someone who was an unknown journeywoman a year ago.

Barthel vs Mladenovic
Errani ver Bertens

That's hardly a dream line-up for a Premier.

At least there is a French player.

None of those players are ones that I would pay semis prices for.

[ozza]

Apart from Bartoli getting through to the semi's though, there was no real good semi-final line up. It's probably better for the tourmanent that a young up and coming French player is in the semi's rather than Kvitova. The French crowds at least are normally very good at getting behind a home player.

Not sure how good a sell the final is going to be to the locals if Mladenovic loses tomorrow.

[laurie]

Havent got to read all replies to this thread on my mobile, but I am at the tournament for the quarterfinal and final. Interestingly I was thinking that the atmosphere seemed more subdued than when I was here last year. There also seemed a bit less crowd and they were not getting into Bartoli like last year against Vinci and Kerber.

But also there are less kids than last year as well I noticed, I wonder if the event being run a week earlier than last year is a difference? Hope for a good final and upbeat crowd, impressed with Barthel's serve.

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[coolfish1103]

Originally Posted by SAISAI-GOAT

I already said my point in my opening post:

LOW CROWD + $$$$$ >>>>> LOW CROWD + NO $$$$$

What a disgrace to have low crowds at a Premier Mandatory event with holidays. $$$ got you all those players to come cause it's mandatory but where are the fans? Only for Li, Peng, Zheng and all those rotten flowers that we can't name them.

WTA needs to fix the schedule with the ITF, it's not even that hard.

After Australian Open
- Davis Cup R16

Before Indian Wells
- Fed Cup QF

After Miami
- Davis Cup QF

After Wimbledon
- Fed Cup SF

After US Open
- Davis Cup SF

After YEC
- Fed Cup F

After WTF
- Davis Cup F

[babsi]

Originally Posted by coolfish1103

What a disgrace to have low crowds at a Premier Mandatory event with holidays. $$$ got you all those players to come cause it's mandatory but where are the fans? Only for Li, Peng, Zheng and all those rotten flowers that we can't name them.

WTA needs to fix the schedule with the ITF, it's not even that hard.

After Australian Open
- Davis Cup R16

Before Indian Wells
- Fed Cup QF

After Miami
- Davis Cup QF

After Wimbledon
- Fed Cup SF

After US Open
- Davis Cup SF

After YEC
- Fed Cup F

After WTF
- Davis Cup F

I would either get rid of Fed Cup or have it just for a week at the end of the year or even every 2 years.

You could move Moscow to Fed Cup week after Paris.

I would have a green clay tournament before Charleston to get that week back in April.
Apr 1 Ponte Vedra Beach (INT)/Fes (INT)
Apr 8 Charleston (P)/Prague (INT)
Apr 15 Katowice (INT)/Budapest(INT)
Apr 22 Stuttgart (P)/Estoril (INT)
Apr 29 Barcelona (INT)

[coolfish1103]

Originally Posted by babsi

I would either get rid of Fed Cup or have it just for a week at the end of the year or even every 2 years.

I think WTA is trying to schedule INT events on the Fed Cup weeks from 2014, but I don't think it's going to work. ITF will also not accept removal of Fed Cups or moved to end of year. They need to reach a compromise with ITF for those schedules to work.

WTA needs to fix so many things:

Schedule
- Shortening season for top players squashing events all over the place
- Too many back to back events for top players killing the tournaments in between
- Trying to force combined events with ATP at opt for Saturday finals
- Commitment P700 should be a different category
- 125s in GS, IW, Miami week #2 and Fed Cup weeks?

Ranking points distribution
- It makes no sense to earn more points winning 1 round of an event and less for 2 rounds.
- Applicable for all Premier events.
- 125k ranking points distribution provides no incentive for players to play.

Acceptance/ranking rules
- 1 INT per half season for Top 10, no substitutes
- Top 11-50 WC for 125k while ITF events have no restrictions
- Top 50 cannot play 125k if can be directly accepted at a higher tier event
- PR ranking can be used for Olympics (?!)
- Fed Cup earning no points
- P5 skipping policies

But we all know Stacey only cares about $$ from developed countries so none of these will get changed or fixed.

[ozza]

I agree with most of the points made above. I think the problem with having Internationals the same week as Fed Cup is simply not going to work (I know they more want to do it to make a point to the ITF), most mid-ranked players that would play the international will choose Fed Cup because the financial incentives for them to play are higher. The top ranked players simply don't want to play those weeks full stop. So you will be left with lower ranked players that can't get into their Fed Cup teams, which will make for terrible fields.

I for one think the season should be about 2 weeks longer than it currently is, which still leaves a 2 month off season, but allows you to stretch certain areas of the season that desperately need it. Post-USO is way too condensed as it currently stands. And the other week is needed from 2015 when there are 3 weeks of grass court events needed between the French Open and Wimbledon rather than the current 2.

One thing to add to the above post is the WTA system is too over complicated for your general fan. The ATP have understood this with there 250, 500, 1000 system - that is easy for everyone to understand. The WTA system is pretty long winded to explain to casual fans, and is not helped by Indian Wells and the like often just being referred to as a Premier event by broadcasters. The whole 3 tiers of Premier events, entry rules to these events and Internationals is not that easy to understand, and I'm sure a lot of broadcasters themselves don't understand the full differences between events. On ATP everyone knows if you win a 500 you get 500 points, you win a Masters 1000 and you get 1000 points - it's that simple.

[Raiden]

One easy solution is to rearrange Indian Wells and Miami (these two tournaments are ridiculous on two counts: together they take up a whole month - they're practically bigger than the entire grass season. And they are doubly ridiculous because they are also back-to-back mandatory events.

Fix that shit and the WTA will have two new extra weeks on the calendar that they can play and rearrange.

These are the kind of actions WTA can do instead of stealing bread away from the mouths of scrubs by shortening the whole season and not leaving room for Fed cups and what not.

[ozza]

Originally Posted by Raiden

One easy solution is to rearrange Indian Wells and Miami (these two tournaments are ridiculous on two counts: together they take up a whole month - they're practically bigger than the entire grass season.

And they are doubly ridiculous because they are also back-to-back mandatory events. Fix that shit and the WTA will have two new extra weeks on the calendar that they can play and rearrange.

These are the kind of actions WTA can do instead of stealing bread away from the mouths of scrubs by shortening the whole season and not leaving room for Fed cups and what not.

Surely no-one actually wants the season shorter than it already is?

While in principle what you say is good and sounds great on paper. In practice WTA probably don't have a lot of say in this. It is crazy that you have 2 non-grand slam events taking up 4 weeks of your calendar, everyone knows this, the WTA must know this.

[Raiden]

Originally Posted by ozza

Surely no-one actually wants the season shorter than it already is?

While in principle what you say is good and sounds great on paper. In practice WTA probably don't have a lot of say in this. It is crazy that you have 2 non-grand slam events taking up 4 weeks of your calendar, everyone knows this, the WTA must know this.

I don't think so. It's a choice they made.

No one forced the WTA to be inflexible and get in bed with the ATP for back-to-back four straight weeks.