Last week, the WTA once again rolled out one of its major spring tournaments in Stuttgart, the relevance of the event qualified only by the fact that it takes place indoors. But here’s a subtle yet important point: The event comes very close to alleviating Madrid promoter Ion Tiriac’s conviction that the draws at Grand Slam and Masters events are too large, too laden with fat. The draw in Stuttgart was 32 deep, with the four top women awarded byes.
Thus, top seed Maria Sharapova won just four matches in her successful quest to defend her title. The WTA is more flexible about such “custom” tournament tweaking—the men’s event in Barcelona, where Rafael Nadal just won his eighth title in nine tries, featured a 48-player draw, with 16 byes. Yikes!
In fact, Nadal had to win five matches to pocket yet another Barcelona trophy. Does the ATP tour have that much more depth, or is it merely more bent on maintaining tradition, or job opportunities? Should the WTA rank-and-file be upset by this apparent “rich get richer” mentality in Stuttgart?
One big difference, before we jump to any conclusions, is that Stuttgart is an indoor event. It has limited court space, and that may be why the WTA continues to give its blessing to a “Premier” event that really begins with the equivalent of the fourth round of a Grand Slam—the first, bye-heavy round serving as a qualifier.
Barcelona was the only ATP 500 tournament last week; this week there are none. These weeks are a welcome relief from the Masters 1000 events where the elite players so routinely dominate. On that relevant note, let’s get on with our awards: