Murray punished for missing Indianapolis

RJA · Hall of fame

Murray punished for missing Indianapolis

steven · Tennis legend

There's lots about this on the Muzza ranking thread at http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spark?forumID=61841&p=3&topicID=14738450&commentPage=3

Vandenburg · Futures level

thats a bit crap aint it! so that means if he won 6 titles next year excluding masters, one of them would be ousted by that 0 from indie which is on card for a year now?

steven · Tennis legend

5 not 6, but yes. It could affect Masters Cup qualification too, seedings for slams next year, and so on, and those effects could compound themselves too, e.g. not qulifying for TMC means being seeded outside the top 8 for the AO, which means going out a round earlier than he mioght otherwise have done, which means lower seedings stilll, and so on.

Hopefully it won't come to that. I think he may have been treated a bit unfairly here, but given that the Indy w/d was the clearly voluntary one, it's very lax of his team not to have checked out this situation first.

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

Not quite sure where I read this now, but another possibility for the tournament where he withdrew from without reason could be New Haven.

Although he didn't enter directly, he was originally given a WC, but late on withdrew/changed his mind about the WC and so didn't play the event... although he was coming back from his wrist injury, and I think the reason he changed his mind was because he wanted to rest it for the US Open, I'd guess it would count for a late withdrawal as it wasn't technically because of an injury...

That is, if having been given a WC and then withdrawing counts under the ATP's rules.

Even if he's been treated unfairly, it's still very careless of him to withdraw as late as he did, and hopefully it won't cost him something in the end, but I'm sure it will (whether it be a top 8 seed for US Open/Aussie Open/Masters Series event, missing the Masters Cup, or just finishing 1 place lower in the rankings at the end of the year)

steven · Tennis legend

Your para 1: Yes, New Haven (rather than Valencia) seems to be to be the more likely 'first offence'.

p2: Yes, that's my theory too! That's why I think maybe he's being penalised for being over-honest, when lots of players would have said their wrist was playing up again and got away with it - it's a silly rule if it encourages lying.

p3: I've checked, yes it does. By the way, it does also seem to imply in the rules that an injury is treated as not being a real one for the purposes of this rule unless it rules you out for more than one week, so that might have something to do with it too - very silly if it does.

p4: Exactly, and yes of course it's almost bound to.

steven · Tennis legend

I just checked and none of the media seems to have mentioned this yet. It's exactly the kind of thing we could do with a bit of an insight on from someone who's closer to the action. (drops big hint in case Neil is watching wink

)

Though I realise Neil wasn't there (and fair enough, his report on the County Cup was more interesting than anything that's actually come out of Toronto so far apart from Fed's loss), it'll be interesting to see whether it was brought up at his press conference last night (if not, why not?) - the transcript isn't up yet.

-- Edited by steven at 09:44, 2008-07-24

mjd · Challenger qualifying

I wonder if Nadal would be treated the same?
Although he does jump on the plane and go to apologise. wink

Even at challenger and futures levels the rules for late withdrawals are strictly adhered to. Cannot just say "I had an injury" or "I felt sick" - must have medical note to prove it. If a player withdraws while at a tournament and leaves without seing the doctor they will be fined regardless.

-- Edited by mjd at 10:33, 2008-07-24

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

mjd wrote:

I wonder if Nadal would be treated the same?
Although he does jump on the plane and go to apologise

The Nadal situation is slightly different, as I don't think who can withdraw from the following weeks tournament while you are playing the previous week, so Nadal couldn't withdraw from Stuttgart until after the Wimbledon final, when the draw had already been made.

I don't think it will count as a late withdrawal for Nadal, as he would have used the reason for withdrawing as fatigue, which is acceptable and counts as a medical reason (as he was too tired to play = the same as being too injured to play)

But who knows? It could count for Nadal, but I don't think he'd be careless enough to withdraw late twice for us to ever find out.

Salmon · Tennis legend

If he was fatigued he shouldn't have entered a tournament in the first place. It was hardly a shock that he reached the final in Wimbly, isn't it?

Different rules for different people.

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

He had to enter Stuttgart 6 weeks beforehand though, so at that point he probably wasn't fatigued, and when he entered the event, he probably was at the start of the clay court season so was trying to get all the points he can to stay at number 2 in the world.

And he's signed a contract with Stuttgart meaning he's obliged to play there... but with the calender change, Stuttgart became the week after Wimbledon rather than 2 weeks after it.

Nadal isn't the only player who's withdrawn from events because of fatigue... practically all of the top players have done so in past

steven · Tennis legend

Far be it from me to defend the monster, but I think Rafa actually cited his dodgy knee as the problem, and you can imagine that the day after THAT Final, it could have been playing up quite a bit.

Simmy26 · Lower Club Player

How many points will Andy lose because of this?

mike55 · Lower Club Player

Effectively it is currently costing him 120 points as his Metz final place has been displaced by this zero pointer, see http://www.atptennis.com/3/en/players/playerprofiles/pointsbreakdown.asp?player=MC10

indiana · Tennis legend

Simmy26 wrote:

How many points will Andy lose because of this?

Mm, slightly complacted.

For the next year, he can only count 17 events rather than 18, so at any time it is what his theoretical 18th even would be worth.

Now, normally for a player at his level, that counts all Grand Slams and Masters ( 13 tournaments in all ), the 18th would be his 5th best optional, which is 75 points currently.

However, because of the calendar change to some events, this week's rankings actually have an additional Masters Series tournament in them, so it is costing him his 4th best optional, i.e. as has been said, 120 points. So he has 1835 points rather than the 1955 points he would have had ( which actually hasn't effected his ranking position this week, he would still have been 9th with 1955 points ).

Next weeks rankings willl have yet another Masters Series tournament counting ( now 2 Canada and 2 Cincinnati ), so it will be costing him his 3rd best optional, 200 points !!

Over the following 2 weeks as first last year's Canada Masters comes out of the rankings and then last year's Cincinnati Masters, it will revert back to just costing him his 5h optional, currently 75 points.

Basically, it could very well cost him ranking positions and hence potentail seeding positions at times, even potentially a Masters Cup Final place, but it is really depenadant on how close he is to other players. For instance this week he would have been 9th in the rankings without the penalty, and is actually still 9th, even with 120 points less, since he was so far ahead of the 10th player.

You did ask