pro tournaments seeding system a joke
I've been screaming about this for years to anyone who'll listen: the seeding system used at pro tournaments is a joke. Here's apparently how the seeding committees do their jobs: "Let me see the latest rankings. Ok, we're done." Takes nothing into account like surface, past results at that tournament, recent results on any surface, etc. The idea behind seedings is to get the best matchups late in the tournament. So why seed David Ferrer according to his #4 ranking at, say, an event on carpet or grass (ignore reported recent changes to the grass used for a minute), when he's just not the fourth-best player in the world on those surfaces? Or why seed Andy Roddick number six at Roland Garros (if it started today) when he's made it past the second round once? At least Wimbledon attempts to do it right.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Mark / The Mayor on
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and me 3!
Damn the torpedoes!
(i dont even know what that means.)
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Permalink Reply by Perry H on
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Repeat after me, "google is my friend" lol.....I almost knew this one!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Farragut
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Permalink Reply by BigMike on
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me personally, i like it because it is cut and dry. No thinking.. well this guy did good last year but lost first round 2 years ago, and this guys not great on clay, but this south american guy that plays twice the amount of tournaments on clay then most of the other guys play has a good record..its a great way to take out human bias...these guys have earned their seeding spot
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Permalink Reply by mikeindo on
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Hey totally cool. But why not (do the thinking)? Look at the NCAAs and all of the analysis and interest about who's on the bubble and who's seeded where. Why isn't that same interest in the seedings each week? I think it would make for fun analysis just like they enjoy on a variety of ESPN and network shows covering football and basketball. Plus, the system could be quantified (see below for my rough idea), but the human factor might be what keeps it making sense. Hey, if the ATP wants to hire me to figure it all out each week, I'd take it! That being said, you can't tell me that if Wimbledon were played today, David Ferrer deserves the #4 seed. That guy wouldn't make it to the 2nd week. (Sorry, to pick on you, David, but hey, it's that easy.)
You could take into consideration (1) their current ranking, (2) their results (win-loss and/or finishes like titles, runner-up, semis, etc.) on that surface in the past 52 weeks, (3) their career results (W-L and/or finishes) at that particular tournament, and (4) their results (W-L and/or finishes) on all surfaces in the last month. Maybe even head-to-head results as a tiebreaker. So, to illustrate, let's see where my good buddy David Ferrer would be at Miami as compared to, say, Roddick. Ferrer's (1) ranked #4, (2) is 27-12 on hardcourts since '07 Miami, (3) has made two semis and had two first-round losses (and last year lost to Roddick in R16) in Miami, and (4) this week's upset in the QF was his best result since his QF showing at the Aus Open two months ago. On the other hand, Roddick is (1) ranked #6, (2) is 27-9 on hardcourts since '07 Miami, (3) has 3 QFs and a title at Miami, (4) and won San Jose (hardcourts) two weeks ago. Who looks better for Miami? I'm not saying Roddick should get Ferrer's 4th seed - I'm just saying he should be ahead of Ferrer. (Um, let's not look at their head-to-head stats, shall we? Heh-heh. (Eyes darting side to side.)) Or take Roddick and Gonzalez (#13) at any claycourt event.
Yes, I wasted a lot of time compiling all this. But I had fun doing it!
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That makes a lot of sense, but wow, that would be a nightmare for a seeding comittee..me personally, i would make Roddick unseeded and have him play Federer 1st round each tournament..lol...
as for Miami, i got my tickets for the 27thand28th..praying for good weather and awesome playing out on the practice courts!!!!
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yeah, could definitely be a nightmare. had to laugh out loud too about federer-roddick! i'm jealous about your tix...i'd love to make it out to indian wells - seems my whole family's been out there except me!
to play devil's advocate to my argument above, it seems that most all players seem to do pretty well all year long, especially since probably 95% of the season is spent on clay and hardcourts (even the grass has supposedly been slowed down). but that could be a testament to playing styles too - most everyone plays the same way, in which case you can get by with just using the rankings since a lot of the other variables have been removed. for example, even though rafael nadal and carlos moya prefer the clay, you'd seed rafa higher on grass because he's the better overall player.
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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Liew on
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Ok good point... but let's also note that if tournaments had complete freedom, they would also favor local players i.e. Henman at Wimbledon and let's hypothesize, Aussie open seeding Hewitt in the top 8, Roland Garros seeding Gasquet in the top 4?
And to be fair to Ferrer, the first breakthrough to get him to #4 was his semi-final performance at the US open... gasp a hard court and not clay.
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Sure, there might be favoritism if it were strictly human-determined and left to the tournaments themselves. So maybe it'd have to be a system/formula assigning point values for each piece of criteria. And it could be verified by the ATP, if not determined solely by them. That way, when they knew who was going to be in the tournament, they could just enter their names and it'd spit out what their final 'seeding quotients' would be and then just arrange them highest to lowest. Easy, right? ;) Of course, that does eliminate the human factor altogether, which might result in weird, uh, results, but the overall ranking system is 100% computer-based, and we all seem to accept that pretty well.
Yep, you're right. Can't deny that about Ferrer!
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forgot to point out that roland garros supported my argument this year. right at the top too. federer seeded #1 and nadal #2? c'mon...
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So what do you think of the Wimbledon seeds? Roddick number 6? Ferrer 5? After seeing Nadal at Queens, he is definitely number Dos, no?
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