It's a tough one all round - the 8 seeds are all ranked under 150

This is completely ridiculous... WR 194 and not only are you not seeded in a 25k tournament but playing someone in the top 100 in the first round. This is easily a 60-100k field. #nuts

Horrible draw.

Hopefully Katie send her packing.

That is daft. But do we blame the WTA here. It's the ITF surely responsible for these.

Let's go Katie! 6-3

skibbarriz wrote:

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That is daft. But do we blame the WTA here. It's the ITF surely responsible for these.

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The ITF bears a good proportion of blame, but their room for maneuvure on ranking points and such is limited by the WTA stipulations on top level tournament rewards, and their proportionality to non-WTA events
i.e. WTA events must have certain points values for winners, and throughout each round, and must be certain multiples of any on the ITF.

The WTA insist that, per their calculations and expediency of the nice numbers, Premier Mandatory wins are 1000 points, and Grand Slams 2000, and once you work down their tiers to International at 280 points for the win, and that no ITF event have any more than 150 points for the win (in case they be seen as too close in importance to Internationals. That then doesnt leave enough room for the ITF to meaningfully structure their tiers out with clear points steps between them - there's too much overlap and narrow gaps - the range from 150 to 0 to cover Q & MD for everything from $100K+H down to $15K, is too small to accomodate it all.

There's nothing the ITF can do about that, the WTA aren't going to change their prerogative, and can, and have, threatened to 'go it alone' and make the ITF sort of irrelevant.
So, they are left trying to find a formula to fit all those tiers in. They've made an OK job of it, until they moved $10K up to $15K, and dropped the old $15K level, but kept $25K as it was. That is where a bad step now exists.

ITF could, and probably should, drop the +H tiers, and perhaps even drop some other levels (like the mens): maybe $15K, $40K, $60K $80K, $100K - with an appropriate re-calibration of the points throughout. The fewer tiers would allow greater distiction between the tiers, and a more even spread of points across the full gamut of tiers.
But they've gone with the complicated new tour, so we'll have to see how that goes. ITF share the blame, certainly, but, from my point of view, aren't the sole malefactors.

Yes, sorry I for some reason was thinking the WTA were responsible for all the women's ranking points distributions. Though I see blob certainly still doesn't let the WTA off the hook.

Anyway, however arrived at, the 15K to 25K to 60K ( win 12, 50, 80 ) graduation is extremely silly, certainly compared to the men's similar of 18, 27 and 80 ( from their ITFs and 60K ATP challengers ) It did seem laziness not to change a scale or two and as said fewer tiers might have helped.

When I originally followed general tennis more closely 25Ks seemed more looked at as sort of low level challengers but bringing the prize scales in line with the men's have brought them firmly into the futures equivalent bed as far as prize money comparison goes but not really re points. So that leaves them as a bit of a strange beast with often these very strong fields.