ATP Sitting On A Gold Mine

 The ATP is sitting on top of an untapped gold mine. There truly aren't minor leagues in tennis. On the men's side, there's the Future's Tour and the Challenger Tour. But these tournaments are full of professionals who bounce back and forth between the ATP tour, and the majors. 

So although we might remark that a player came from the Challenger Tour, or is making the jump between tours, these are professionals who's only restraint is their amount of wins. They are not waiting on a franchise to bring them up. They do that themselves. 

But on the main ATP website, players aren't even given credit for Challenger Tour wins. You have to contact the National Archives and the CIA to open an investigation into what a player is doing on the Challenger Tour. This despite these tournaments occurring at nicer surroundings than most other tournaments. You may be at a super nice country club or at a college facility on the Challenger Tour. 

This kinduv reminds me of the attitude in the media towards football leagues outside of the NFL. Why even have these leagues if the media doesn't cover it and no one goes to the games ? They must make money, but the effort to ignore all these leagues is much greater than the effort to embrace them and cover them as actual sports. Why not highlight these Challenger and Futures players more ? Their ranks are full of the up and coming talent, the veterans and even stars working on their rankings.

There is no difinitive break in the rankings between ATP players and others. And in fact, it works the other way in a very negative way. There are plenty of guys hanging onto spots in the first round of ATP tournaments who would get smoked weekly on the Challenger Tour. They benefit from the difference in points and despite losing constantly and not ever getting very far, they are considered better than the next breakthrough guy, which is never true. Not promoting the Challenger guys enough leads to absolutely zero fans at early round matches on the ATP Tour because the results seem predictable and manufactured. 

Increasing draw sizes instead of condemning the Challenger players to the qualies is also a good idea. And when it comes to majors, the entire extra week for the qualies has become very silly. That week might as well be a Chalenger Tournament in the lead up. With a draw of 128 players, there are already dozens of mainly Chalenger Tour players in the draw. Asking a player from qualies to win way more matches than the top players in order to win a major is very unfair. The sport should be fair. We should not be asking these players to do the impossible.

Why are there byes in pro tennis ? Replace every bye with a Challenger Tour player tomorrow. Giving top players extra rest, extra money and extra advantages creates an unwatchable sport. Byes and qualifyers equals empty stands in the early rounds all over the world. It is embarrassing to see this on television weekly. All tournaments should be at least 64 players, problem solved. 

It is time to erase the caste system in pro tennis. Everything outside the top tier works much like junior tennis. It's time to reel this tier in because it's ruining the sport. The sport is so much bigger then this small part, and more importanrtly, this top tier would be meaningless without the foundation of the sport being healthy. You can't have the 14 year olds at the local USTA tournaments fighting harder than the coddled pros who couldn't care less whether they were #45 or #75. Just look at the Americans. Both Tommy Paul and Frances Tiafoe made it into the top 10 last year, but are closer to #30 right now. But we treat them like they're top 10, not like players who couldn't care less about their rankings. I would rather watch Chalenger Tour players then those two. 

The stories, the fight, these will always outweigh 'oh I had a bye after taking a few weeks off after getting upset' or 'no seriously I didn't take those steroids that I tested positive for.' What is the ATP doing allowing Sinner a break for cramps ? And when that train left the station, they change it to they had to take him off the court to check his blood pressure. The ATP doesn't understand they would have won fans by allowing Spizziri to upset Sinner. Heck, they would have won fans by banning Sinner forever. The stories, the fight, not the entitlement. Did you know that Stefan Kozlov is still working the Challenger Tour ? Remember Bernard Tomic ? Every top college player from the last decade is out there too. 

Personally, I would just like something more than having to scroll through the tournament draws and not even having their wins calculated anywhere. You could be 21-5 at Challenger Tournaments all over the world, but it will show your record as 0-0 when you play at an ATP event. This lends to gambling, but also to creating different classes. This makes sense since the official ATP rankings are sponspored by the Saudi Public Investment Fund. 

Tennis is tennis, man. You can try to separate this from that, but promoting exactly five players over the past like 30 years has not grown the sport the way the top brass thinks. Millions pick up tennis each year, the sport. But millions each year are not becoming fans of the tours or visitors to tournaments, let alone websights. There is a serious disconnect due to the ATP being desirous of having tennis on the menu with the NFL, MLB, etc INSTEAD of being its own thing with its own fans. A tennis family is an all encompassed unit held hostage by their tennis schedule, their tennis fashion, their equipment and their view of themselves as individual players. Those are our fans. I don't care about the people who can't name over 10 professional players in a combined draw of 256 players at a major, why does anyone else ? Our bread is buttered by our hardcare fans who play tennis. Let's mine this group, uplift them and the sport at the same time. 

Lex Luthor

"Consolidated break by Greg Gunther to go up 2-0"