The players claim that the current month-long break is not adequate enough, though the new schedule will not allow any break between the Paris Masters and ATP World Tour Finals, pushing back the London event's start back to a Monday.
It also means qualifying for the 2012 London tournament, which will start on 5 November that year, could still be in the balance up until the Paris final the day before.
Farcical. Showpiece end of the season then with players just coming out of a Masters event the week before. Sure be some interesting Paris and WTF results
Fine with me - I don't have Sky and the tennistv stream was driving me mad tonight, watching (or at least trying to watch) Federer v Ferrer. It kept freezing and breaking up.
LTA have advised on twitter that the Andy vs Fed ( who beat Ferrer 6 - 1 6 - 4 ) match will be on Tuesday afternoon.
Mass swearing by the folk with Tuesday night tickets !
I just can't believe it, i wasted £60 on tickets to watch one player i saw last year and another i don't want to watch. I feel even worse now becos i swore to my friends we'd get a good match on the Tuesday evening (especially after it came up that Murray v Federer on the Tuesday), now it must be a massive letdown. This is massively disheartening, im tempted to rip my tickets up and throw them in the bin
LTA have advised on twitter that the Andy vs Fed ( who beat Ferrer 6 - 1 6 - 4 ) match will be on Tuesday afternoon.
Mass swearing by the folk with Tuesday night tickets !
I just can't believe it, i wasted £60 on tickets to watch one player i saw last year and another i don't want to watch. I feel even worse now becos i swore to my friends we'd get a good match on the Tuesday evening (especially after it came up that Murray v Federer on the Tuesday), now it must be a massive letdown. This is massively disheartening, im tempted to rip my tickets up and throw them in the bin
So sorry, but you probably can still buy tickets (I bought mine last night) and you could probably sell your evening tickets outside afterwards, at a slightly reduced price. Just a suggestion, but thats what I would do .
It was very good to be at the O2 yesterday to watch Muzza do a demolition job on the temporary world no 4! Great serving and point construction and there seemed to be very few unforced errors from Andy compared with lots from Söd, whose volleying in particular was pretty awful, though that was probably Andy cleverly taking advantage of a known weakness. I didn't think the rest of the Swede's game was too bad though, Andy just played too well for him.
Hardly a mental wobble either. Some might count parts of the first half of the 2rd set, but given that whenever we shouted out "Come on Muzza" (which tended to mean the next point was a crucial one), he banged down yet another ace, it's hard to fault him! If he could play all matches against lesser opponents like that, he'd get to the sharp end of tournaments very fresh indeed.
I thought the crowd was very good too - you'd hardly get any noise out of a Wimbledon crowd during a win as straightforward as that.
I do feel sorry for the Knight - if you'd asked me a few days ago when the second Muzza match was likely to be, I'd have said Tuesday evening too. I doubt it would be that easy to sell tickets for Ferrer/Söd outside the O2 before the evening session if you got last minute tickets to the day session, especially when tickets to that session are still on sale now (so those who want to see it but don't have tickets are likely to be buying now, not turning up on spec), but it's worth a try if you do decide to follow Julia's suggestion. Or maybe even approach anyone watching one of the Spaniards practicing during the day session and carrying a flag with "vamos Ferru" on it! (I saw one at the day session yesterday!)
I managed to get rid of a spare ticket for the Fed match yesterday by mentioning it to one of the Dutch Feddie fans who plays BOTB - it got snapped up even faster than the spare ticket for the Murray match by an Aussie Feddie fan who had bought tickets for the feature sessions on the first two days (i.e. Sunday afternoon and Monday evening) without factoring in the probability that Murray would get feature slot if he was in the same group as Fed.
Obviously Ferrer and Söd don't have such busy sites as Fed, but Ferrer has a forum at http://www.davidferrer.com/foro/index.php that you could probably get away with posting in English on (since anyone in London and hence possibly interested is likely to be able to speak English), or you could try the far busier forum at vamosbrigade.com (a Rafa-centred forum, but a lot of them will be keen on the Spanish players in general), while Söderling has a forum at http://robinsoderling.se/forum/ - other people attempting to shift tickets for that session (and I bet there are quite a few) are unlikely to think of looking for these players' forums, so that's another advantage of going down that route.
The other thing in my favour trying to get rid of the Fed ticket was that the girl who advertised them on the RF site is an established poster there and could vouch that I was genuine, but even so, if you offer them at a decent price, you might get lucky.
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GB on a shirt, Davis Cup still gleaming, 79 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming ... 29/11/2015 that dream came true!
Julia Carrot wrote:Can't wait, but I'm not keen on the shirt - Can't believe Kim let him out in that
[shallowdiscussion] I expect the $$$$$$$ have a lot to do with it. . . Actually, reading other boards, the new kit seems to be very "Marmite" - you either like it or hate it. I am one of the ones who like it. The blue was fine, except the one with the yellow underarm "sweat patches", but I got very sick of it. [/shallowdiscussion]
Farcical. Showpiece end of the season then with players just coming out of a Masters event the week before. Sure be some interesting Paris and WTF results
Absolutely crazy, what the hell are they thinking of.
Firstly I would expect quite a few no shows amongst the top 4 or 5 at Paris from 2012 onwards and frankly who can blame them.
Secondly what about the poor sod who is 10th or 11th all year pulls out a great win in Paris to sneak into 8th place and then is too knackered to have a chance in London.
OK, next day and it still looks as ludicrous to have no gap between Paris and the ATP Tour finals.
To quote the ATP...
"The health and wellbeing of our players is paramount. Preserving and extending their playing careers is critical for the long-term good of the sport, Helfant said.
Analysis by the ATP Medical Services Committee indicates that lengthening the off-season will help players fully recover from injuries and improve their strength and fitness, which will have benefits throughout the season and help increase the length of their careers."
Well, I take it they don't expect many players to be giving anything like full commitment to both Paris and London in successive weeks at the end of a long season. That to me would seem the way to injury as compared to having a week off in between, and finishing the season a week later for these players. So I take it the ATP will understand withdrawls from Paris. Maybe make it an optional Masters !! Though really just don't do it !!
As said pity the poor guy that maybe really does have to work to qualify by maybe even having to win Paris. Apart from just being likely very fatigued therefore having much less chance of doing much in London, he risks injury in that state.
As for tickets, many folk like to see the draw, at least to know on what days their favourites will be playing before buying tickets ? When will the draw be made ? The night before the first match if waiting for Paris for a possible late qualifier and / or a final that will effect seeding positions ?
Schedule works well Sunday to Sunday. Presumably still finishing on the Sunday so a Monday to Sunday schedule will be interesting as to how and when they fit in 3 group game for everyone in 5 days. Or do they indeed finish on the much more unsatisfactory Monday ? . They say they've saved 2 weeks. Well they'ed be a hell of a lot better just at least managing to save one week then this farce. Surely sense will prevail sooner or later !
They should at least make Paris non-mandatory. It would save the top players having to "invent" injury to get out of it. . . Yes, it would be hard on two or three players who need to play it to try to qualify, but in earlier years the final 8 has been decided before Paris.
I'm interested as to what will happen to the draw. Leave it until the very last minute? Or do it at the same time as this year, with known players v "tbd- #7" or something like that?
And all the pre-tournament promo will presumably have to go as well. No more jollies having a knock-up with the PM in the diningroom of no. 10. . .