I enjoy the Indian Wells and Key Biscayne tournaments, and have watched plenty of matches from both events. But sometimes, you just have to go where the crowd (and my hometown Syracuse Orange) goes in March: the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament.
The Orange, seeded third in this year’s tournament, did well before being eliminated in the third round. They weren’t the only highly-ranked team to survive the potentially dangerous opening weekend of competition. Of the top 16 ranked teams, 14 reached the tournament’s Sweet 16. March Madness has produced some memorable upsets of powerhouse teams, but that hasn’t been the case this year.
For this reason, this year’s NCAA tournament has widely been panned for its lack of excitement. Slate called it “boring,” as did the San Francisco Chronicle. The Los Angeles Times called it “predictable,” after terming the Sweet 16 “sour,” while Yahoo opted for “lame.” But what isn’t mentioned in these articles is the fact that favorites need to win for upsets to have any meaning. If all you get is upsets, the sport will eventually slip into a state of parity, where the concept of strong and weak teams is almost nonexistent. Every team would be essentially the same—not healthy for any sport. Dominant teams are polarizing, and always attract attention; they generate interest in the sport.
If these columnists wanted to see upsets, they should have been paying attention to the women’s tournaments in Indian Wells and Key Biscayne. Here’s a sampling of the carnage at those events:
- No. 2 seed Jelena Jankovic loses to Anastasia Pavlyuchenova in the second round of Indian Wells.
- No. 3 seed Elena Dementieva loses to Petra Cetkovska in the second round of Indian Wells.
- No. 6 seed Svetlana Kuznetsova loses to Urszula Radwanska in the second round of Indian Wells.
- No. 2 seed Dinara Safina loses to Samantha Stosur in the third round of Key Biscayne.
- No. 3 seed Jelena Jankovic loses to Gisela Dulko in the second round of Key Biscayne.
- No. 6 seed Vera Zvonareva loses to Li Na in the third round of Key Biscayne.
- No. 7 seed Ana Ivanovic loses to No. 25 seed Agnes Szavay in the third round of Key Biscayne.
- No. 9 seed Nadia Petrova loses to Ekaterina Makarova in the third round of Key Biscayne.
Now that’s March Madness. And I’m sure that dedicated WTA Tour fans actually are mad about those results—with good reason. Their sport is flush with highly-ranked and under-performing players (every player I’ve listed above is currently ranked No. 9 in the world or higher). And few challengers have threatened their positions near the top of the rankings in recent years. Sure, Venus or Serena Williams can come to save the day at a major tournament, but what does it say about the WTA Tour when Serena drums third-seeded Safina, 6-0, 6-3, in the Australian Open final?
Contrast this with the landscape of the ATP Tour. While there is also a duopoly at Slams in Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, the tier of players below them make the men’s tour so captivating. Six of the ATP’s Top 9 (as of March 23) reached the quarterfinals or better at the Australian Open, Indian Wells and Key Biscayne, the three most prestigious events of the year so far. And only one player (excluding No. 5 Nikolay Davydenko, who has missed most of the 2009 season because of injury) failed to reach at least the fourth round at any of these tournaments—Gilles Simon, in Indian Wells.
What does this all mean? Fans get to see matches between the sport’s best and most consistent players more often. That’s good news for the health of the ATP Tour. Pre-scheduled telecasts—when they are actually shown on TV—get to showcase the sport’s best and most marketable players, which ideally attracts new fans and retains existing ones. And if an upset does occur, like Fernando Verdasco beating Andy Murray in the fourth round of this year’s Australian Open, it actually means something.
Exactly the opposite is happening on the WTA Tour. Blowout matches and stunning collapses have been commonplace in 2009. Upsets have become routine rather than an aberrational. By most accounts, interest in the men’s tour greatly exceeds that of the women’s. And that’s not just because the ATP Tour has Nadal and Federer, two legends in the making. It’s because the WTA Tour has so little to show for itself right now.
The best women’s players, save the Williamses, are to blame for this predicament. They haven’t been pulling their weight at the biggest tournaments, which hurts them personally, and hurts the sport they represent. For all the dedicated WTA Tour fans out there, I hope it turns around—quickly—for your sake. But I’m not optimistic at the moment. And it’s not because the WTA Tour is “boring,” “predictable,” or “lame”—the WTA Tour is none of those things. It’s because the tour is simply weak.
Ed McGrogan is an assistant editor at TENNIS.com.