I have found this on Master exempts (from 2015), and understand that a player cannot miss the same Masters two years on the trot unless they are exempt from all Masters. But I can't seem to find the rules on missing Premier Mandatories or GSs. Please can someone help me on this. (for men and women).
A players number of ATP World Tour Masters 1000 commitment tournaments shall be reduced by one (1) tournament for reaching each of the following milestones: 1) 600 matches* (as of 1 January of the commitment year); 2) 12 years of service; 3) 31 years of age (as of 1 January of the commitment year). If all three (3) conditions are met then the player has a complete exemption from the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 player commitment. The first Year of Service shall be the first calendar year in which a player has competed in at least twelve (12) tournaments offering ATP ranking points. * From 2010 only main draw singles matches played in the following events will be used in the players match count for purposes of this rule. ATP World Tour Barclays ATP World Tour Final Grand Slams Davis Cup Olympics Challenger and Futures matches played prior to 2010 will remain on the players record as relates to this commitment reduction rule.
There's a whole chunk in the rulebook about commitments for top ten players, and a relaxation of those commitments for players who reach 30. But takes a bit of reading to work out just what they mean.
I wonder whether when the ATP thought up those rules, they anticipated that there would be a time when three of the top five players would be freed of all Masters obligations - and the remaining two would be able to skip two each.
On a related note, when checking, I noticed that if Roger Federer gets one more match win, he'll be at 1,100. Whether you like him or not, that's an extraordinary statistic.
I see that the ATP do not show a mandatory zero for Andy missing the Miami Masters, presumably due to one of the exclusions.
So he is still one short of the maximum 19 counters ( including the Tour Finals ).
Fed has played so relatively few times overall that they could throw more mandatory zeros at him than they actually have already and it would make no difference to his ranking points. I assume it's in the pocket he mainly saves.
