Joined
·
1,614 Posts
I think the article is just a touch harsh, but here you have it anyway.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1060639814909&call_pageid=969907740050&col=970081602428
Clijsters is worthy but she's not No.1
Serena Williams still best in world
In the sometimes inexplicable world of women's tennis, Kim Clijsters is the new top-ranked player. The problem is, she is not the top player, not by a long shot. And by anointing her the new No.1, the WTA Tour and the folks who invented its ranking system are announcing themselves as sporting laughingstocks.
Don't blame Clijsters: It's not the hard-working Belgian's fault that she is No.1 in some computer, a computer that has somehow determined that Serena Williams — the most dominant female athlete in the world today — is suddenly no longer peerless, even though she so clearly is. Clijsters, 20, has never won a Grand Slam tournament. All the 21-year-old Williams has done in her flashy rise to supremacy is win five of the past six major championships and hold the No.1 ranking for the past 57 weeks.
But the gist of the logic behind the tour's ranking system goes like so: Clijsters has shown up to 23 tournaments this past year, including this week's Rogers AT&T Cup at the National Tennis Centre, where she's justifiably the No.1 seed. Williams, currently rehabbing a knee injury that will keep her out of this month's U.S. Open, has shown her face at just 12 tournaments. Ergo, Clijsters, who has won six 2003 tournaments to Williams' four, is supposedly the game's best player.
No, wait a minute: She's obviously not the best player. The best player in the game wouldn't blow a 5-1 lead in the third set of a Grand Slam final, just like Clijsters did at this year's Australian Open. But the best player in the game — that'd be Williams — did preside over Clijsters' monumental collapse and turn what looked like a certain defeat into a legendary win.
That's the type of performance that defines a great one, and Williams, at age 21, has set herself up to be considered the greatest player the sport has ever known if she continues to play like a reasonable facsimile of herself for a half-dozen more years or so.
In her dominance, she has made events in which she is not a participant seem irrelevant to the casual fan. A tennis tournament without the younger Williams is like a golf tournament without Tiger Woods, only worse. It can be competitive, but it can't be truly compelling. A tennis tournament without Serena and Venus — who is still, despite her No.5 ranking, the world's second-best player — is like a Stones concert without Mick and Keith, a cola taste-test without Coke and Pepsi.
Of course, you can criticize Serena for brazenly scheduling a Toronto movie shoot that would have kept her out of this week's action if surgery hadn't. If the best players keep pulling out of tournaments — if they keep disappointing the sponsors and the ticket-buying public — it's eventually going to hurt the tour.
To my mind, though, it's the tour's responsibility to compel its prize talents — through incentives or penalties or whatever — to show up. Note that the men's tour doesn't have an attendance problem. Perhaps the WTA Tour could take a lesson.
I can't find it in my heart, though, to blame a 21-year-old with a world of options for exercising her interest in acting and modelling and fashion designing. Great athletes get bored. Michael Jordan not only dabbled in baseball, he devoted himself to golf and gambling. His on-court performance didn't exactly suffer, and neither has that of Williams.
It's not her fault she has no rival. It's not her sole responsibility to market the WTA Tour. But it's the WTA Tour's responsibility to make its No.1 ranking mean something. Clijsters is a worthy contender, a regular attendee. But if she's No.1, it's in the hearts of computer geeks who never missed a class. If that's the target demographic, this development's a bull's eye.
Why always say the ranking system's silly? People should not expect a player not competing full time, to be topping the rankings!
As said before, though clearly considered the best F1 driver, who would expect Michael Schumacher to be named world champion in a season in which he would participate in ony 11 out of 17 races?
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1060639814909&call_pageid=969907740050&col=970081602428
Clijsters is worthy but she's not No.1
Serena Williams still best in world
In the sometimes inexplicable world of women's tennis, Kim Clijsters is the new top-ranked player. The problem is, she is not the top player, not by a long shot. And by anointing her the new No.1, the WTA Tour and the folks who invented its ranking system are announcing themselves as sporting laughingstocks.
Don't blame Clijsters: It's not the hard-working Belgian's fault that she is No.1 in some computer, a computer that has somehow determined that Serena Williams — the most dominant female athlete in the world today — is suddenly no longer peerless, even though she so clearly is. Clijsters, 20, has never won a Grand Slam tournament. All the 21-year-old Williams has done in her flashy rise to supremacy is win five of the past six major championships and hold the No.1 ranking for the past 57 weeks.
But the gist of the logic behind the tour's ranking system goes like so: Clijsters has shown up to 23 tournaments this past year, including this week's Rogers AT&T Cup at the National Tennis Centre, where she's justifiably the No.1 seed. Williams, currently rehabbing a knee injury that will keep her out of this month's U.S. Open, has shown her face at just 12 tournaments. Ergo, Clijsters, who has won six 2003 tournaments to Williams' four, is supposedly the game's best player.
No, wait a minute: She's obviously not the best player. The best player in the game wouldn't blow a 5-1 lead in the third set of a Grand Slam final, just like Clijsters did at this year's Australian Open. But the best player in the game — that'd be Williams — did preside over Clijsters' monumental collapse and turn what looked like a certain defeat into a legendary win.
That's the type of performance that defines a great one, and Williams, at age 21, has set herself up to be considered the greatest player the sport has ever known if she continues to play like a reasonable facsimile of herself for a half-dozen more years or so.
In her dominance, she has made events in which she is not a participant seem irrelevant to the casual fan. A tennis tournament without the younger Williams is like a golf tournament without Tiger Woods, only worse. It can be competitive, but it can't be truly compelling. A tennis tournament without Serena and Venus — who is still, despite her No.5 ranking, the world's second-best player — is like a Stones concert without Mick and Keith, a cola taste-test without Coke and Pepsi.
Of course, you can criticize Serena for brazenly scheduling a Toronto movie shoot that would have kept her out of this week's action if surgery hadn't. If the best players keep pulling out of tournaments — if they keep disappointing the sponsors and the ticket-buying public — it's eventually going to hurt the tour.
To my mind, though, it's the tour's responsibility to compel its prize talents — through incentives or penalties or whatever — to show up. Note that the men's tour doesn't have an attendance problem. Perhaps the WTA Tour could take a lesson.
I can't find it in my heart, though, to blame a 21-year-old with a world of options for exercising her interest in acting and modelling and fashion designing. Great athletes get bored. Michael Jordan not only dabbled in baseball, he devoted himself to golf and gambling. His on-court performance didn't exactly suffer, and neither has that of Williams.
It's not her fault she has no rival. It's not her sole responsibility to market the WTA Tour. But it's the WTA Tour's responsibility to make its No.1 ranking mean something. Clijsters is a worthy contender, a regular attendee. But if she's No.1, it's in the hearts of computer geeks who never missed a class. If that's the target demographic, this development's a bull's eye.
Why always say the ranking system's silly? People should not expect a player not competing full time, to be topping the rankings!
As said before, though clearly considered the best F1 driver, who would expect Michael Schumacher to be named world champion in a season in which he would participate in ony 11 out of 17 races?
