Former Champs Struggling, ATP Cannot Get Top Players to Play on Clay

Injuries, illnesses, surgeries, and “scheduling conflicts” are combining to derail past favorites and keep the top players from showing at the top events during the start of the 2004 claycourt season on the ATP Tour, with roughly a month left until the pinnacle of the dirt season at Roland Garros.

Juan Carlos Ferrero, the defending champ at the French, was laid low by a bout of chickenpox last month, and the results of the illness have lingered with a first-round loss at the first claycourt Masters Series event of the year at Monte Carlo. Ferrero was the two-time defending champ at Monte Carlo, and says he will take some additional time off to completely recover from the illness.

Since undergoing hip surgery in February 2002, three-time Roland Garros champion Gustavo Kuerten has struggled to find his former form. Guga won the clay title at Costa Do Sauipe earlier this year and reached the final at Vina del Mar, but has failed to perform at the big events, which has seemingly taken a toll on the Brazilian’s psyche.

“To lose in the first round, it's very sad, especially in a tournament that you have won, like this one,” said Kuerten after losing to Rainer Schuettler in the first round at Monte Carlo. “I think from now on it's gonna be even more different for me to get myself more confidence and maybe with some more rhythm to try to improve my game. I think it's more of a confidence thing, more of the motivation for me. Early rounds are always tough to, you know, to get myself more enthusiastic down there in the court.”

Guga can’t get motivated on clay against a Top 10-ranked opponent at one of the tour’s biggest events? Uh oh, might be time to R-E-T.

Andre Agassi is another clay giant who is no longer a factor, simply because he has removed himself from the equation in 2004. Agassi said he would skip all the events leading up to the French to save wear-and-tear on his body and to get some additional family time, but recently announced he would take a wildcard at the tiny St. Poelten (Austria) tournament two weeks prior to Roland Garros.

St. Poelten?

That Agassi will skip the ATP’s top tier of Masters Series events in Monte Carlo, Hamburg and Rome, and play the tiny Austrian event speaks to the power of under-the-table guarantees paid to players during this time when the tour is struggling financially. In past years the ATP maintained a year-end bonus pool of money for the top players, and could dictate the movement of players by taking away a percentage of bonus pool if they skipped major events. But with the collapse of major sponsorships, the tour no longer maintains a year-end bonus pool as in years past, and can no longer guarantee players posting for the top events.

World No. 1 Roger Federer skipped Monte Carlo while No. 2 Andy Roddick, who accepted a large guarantee to play the Houston event the week before, pulled from Monte Carlo at the last minute citing a “scheduling conflict.” In other words, Monte Carlo was not on the schedule, even though he had entered the event, and the draw had been made with Roddick as the top seed. American stars James Blake and Mardy Fish, with apparently no pressing interest in MC, followed Roddick’s suit.

The falling off of the once-greats on clay and the disinterest of the other top players has left a void that is most likely to be filled by Argentine Guillermo “El Mago” Coria. The Magician, so nicknamed for his vast array of seemingly impossible baseline angles and SportsCenter-type shotmaking, is now the favorite with Carlos Moya for the Roland Garros title.

Coria snuck up on the media last year -- with the focus on the “Three Kings” (Roddick, Federer, Ferrero), the Argentine remained under the radar and was even still in the race for the year-end No. 1 ranking up to a few weeks before the season-ending Masters Cup. Currently at No. 4 on the ATP Rankings, look for the Argentine, if he stays healthy, in the No. 1 race come November.

Another player set to make a splash during the dirt season was Spaniard Rafael “The Prodigy” Nadal, the teen sensation who has scored a number of wins over Top 10 players during the past eight months. Unfortunately Nadal suffered a broken ankle during the first week of the clay season, and is expected to not only miss Roland Garros, but also Wimbledon and the Athens Olympics before he makes his reappearance. Nadal is one of only two players to hand world No. 1 Federer a loss this year.

If top players Federer and Roddick make only sporadic appearances during the European claycourt season, look for domination on the dirt from the likes of Coria, Moya, or even the resurgent Marat Safin, players who rarely miss a top clay stop. Federer is likely already thinking about the grasscourt season and defending his Wimbledon title, while Roddick could be developing an Agassi-like distain for the European dirt. All the while the ATP is wishing the top players could get on the same page when it comes to the “Big 3” before the French – Monte Carlo, Hamburg, and Rome.

The ATP is re-learning a lesson they’d hoped no longer applied – that the top players have no allegiance to the ATP’s “top tier” Masters Series. When it comes down to it, it’s all about the cash.