Never one to keep his opinions tucked away in his racket-bag, Andy Murray was heavily critical of the Association of Tennis Professionals about the round-robin format which will be introduced at a number of tournaments next season, including at the pre-Wimbledon Stella Artois Championships at Queen's Club, London.
Thirteen tournaments will have round-robin matches before the knock-out stages next year, an experiment which the ATP are hoping will help build television audiences as the leading names will be guaranteed to play more than once. But Murray argued that the governing body of men's tennis should have left the tournaments as they are, believing that the changes will not improve the sport, and may even weaken or damage it.
"I don't like it because it favours the top players, big time," he said. "And I just don't get why there's a need to change tennis from being a knock-out sport where you can play great one day, and horribly the next. Now you don't have to be switched on from the first day because you can lose and still end up winning the tournament.
I think I agree with Andy. My problem with it is that in a three player system, it is very easy to have
A bt B B bt C C bt A
Giving everyone one win. But only one progresses, which although there are rules is a little random, as it can be dictated by events in other matches which are beyond your control (say C (who beat A) just did not turn up and against B, giving B the best sets and games records compared to A-no fault of A...).
Tennis is red and tooth and claw. If you lose you go out. End of, as they say.