Wednesday Racket (OT)

Mornin', Tribe. I've been deep in the editing bunker, and will have to duck in and out of there over the coming days as I get caught up on some editing duties for Tennis. But I will be back later today with some thoughts on the brouhaha over the endangered status of Monte Carlo and Hamburg as Masters Series events. I touched on these issues in my most recent post for ESPN (in case you don't know, I blog there every Monday and Thursday), and I need to elaborate on that.  First, I need to do a live ESPN chat around midday - drop by and post a question, if you feel like it.

Now that The Mighty Fed has gotten back on track (he had a tussle with Seppi yesterday in Monaco, but he emerged, albeit with a slightly torn ear and a bloody nose), his next assignment is a meeting with Etienne de Villiers, the ATP CEO, in which TMF will be expressing the concerns of the ATP board re. the ongoing discussions about changes in the calendar and the status of the aforementioned events.

I think TMF has all the right instincts and he has the appropriate love for the game, but it's important to remember that the players are not always capable of taking the measured, long-view that adequate progress in any endeavor requires. For instance, it was nice to see so many players jump on the round-robin bandwagon, because it demonstrated that they were open to experiment and not overly wedded to the status quo. But others - including most of you - saw the potential disaster embodied in round-robin long before the ATP brass or players did.

I know de Villiers is not the most popular guy around here; I find myself cutting him more slack than some of you do precisely because so many people are all over his case. But I'm prepared to go out on a limb to say that when TMF and his sword carriers (including the every trustworthy Ivan No Guns for Murderers! Ljubicic) actually sit down with de Villiers, they will be somewhat moved off their current, outraged position. I say that because de Villiers is the kind of guy who would appreciate the recent posts by Sam and Rosangel, which quantified some of our more interesting, previously impression and opinion based debates. If the players get all emotional about the importance of Monte Carlo, he will ask them to bring more proof of that to the table than their "feelings."

We'll stay tuned on this one. See y'all later!