...using the rankings of 18 July 2016. Which is before a single WTA US/Canadian hardcourt tournament has been played in 2016.
So, with the Rogers Cup at SF stage, among the top 5 players in the world, on this surface at this time, is Kucova. But she doesn't get in, because the list only considers results from weeks 7 to 59 prior to the tournament. Almost all of these are of dubious value for anybody looking to spot form in the bookies. Good results on grass 3 months ago, clay 5 months back, or hardcourts from 6 months to over a year ago might inform a decision about who has long-term class; but for current form, you'd want to look at recent results on the same surface. Those results, on the same surface in the 6 weeks leading up to the tournament are completely ignored. It's absurd.
Kucova now has a very good chance of direct acceptance in 2017, with 350 points already to put towards about 650 to make the top 104 - but by September 2017, she could be long-term injured, pregnant, or nursing a longterm injury that has had her playing very badly for 6 months. She's fit, healthy and playiing the tennis of her life now, in 2016. The US Open 2016 will be a poorer contest without her.
That's a rough one, especially as I think the US system means that there's less scope for doing what Wimbledon often does and giving someone with stellar recent results a WC. I hope they still can - agreed that it would be a pity if she didn't make it into the main draw!
Yes could maybe award MD WCs based on the winners of specific tournaments or best points scorers in a series of tournaments in the month or so before the Slam as Wimbledon does indeed with certain grass tournaments.
ie the sort of earned WCs that I have said I am open to rather than discretionary WCs ( I am not sure you will see that much correlation to very recent form with most of the discretionary WCs and clearly other matters pertain, but their existence is a rather different matter which I won't venture further into here ).
Re early entry list dates, I have argued before for the practicalities for having lists 3 weeks ahead for ITFs when a similar point was made about them and 'out of date' rankings. However 6 weeks does indeed seem unnecessarily long for the Slam MD lists. And I fail to see any real practicalities for such early lists that outweigh the recent form points of wimdledont's original post.
Reducing this to three or four weeks would respect recent form more and add interest to more tournaments close to Slams as players still try to qualify for the MD. Maybe still the short grass season leaves issues re recent grass form as an entry list less than three weeks before again to me would cause real issues re players making plans. So here for Wimbledon in particular is where I can see the earned WC argument.
-- Edited by indiana on Sunday 31st of July 2016 01:19:12 AM
I agree that 6 weeks is too long. I haven't looked for the earlier threads on this subject, so don't know what came out of them. But I was looking at the WTA rulebook this morning, and came across the section on entry lists. It states that the main draw entry deadlines for slams, premier and international tournaments are 6 weeks, but only 3 weeks for the 125k's. So it'll be surprising if that changes in the near future.
( I am not sure you will see that much correlation to very recent form with most of the discretionary WCs and clearly other matters pertain, but their existence is a rather different matter which I won't venture further into here ).
