By Krystle Nicole Russin
The other day, someone said to me, “Tennis’ rankings order doesn’t tell the real story.” He went on to say the rankings aren’t representative of real talent measures, only that some people pick their tournaments wisely. I, having heard this argument from others before, highly disagree.
ADHEREL
The current rankings rules encourage emphasis on entering smaller tournaments and therefore, reaching more tennis fans as opposed to those with the money or transportatIon means to attend Grand Slams. A true tennis star shines most in my eyes playing everywhere — the events with less prize money and publicity — more than the player doing well a few times a year.
My hope is the WTA and ATP can somehow bring even more players to smaller tournaments with the encouragement of a more equal points system. Furthermore, players as we know, dislike putting full effort into matches with fewer points because they get neither improved rankings nor money.
If the greatest in the world could see they needed to give their all to smaller events, more fans would come in bulk, deals could be inked for better television tournament coverage, more businesses would take an interest in promoting the sport and the entire tennis industry, including players, would find great financial incentives — all while reaching more people at smaller levels.
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