Submitted by pat, Jul 23, 2007 16:25

Every year it seems we hear complaints like yours, and mine, about the strangeness of the schedule for the men's and women's tours. I'd like to see an equal number of courts, grass, clay, hard, carpet, spread around in a more logical sequence thru the year. You are correct, we need to get more of our guys over playing in Europe in the spring on the red clay (BTW, Houston is not red clay as you stated, it is green, reportedly a bit faster than the red stuff), and the Europeans have to give up their attachment to the dirt and head over here after Wimbledon. )

The problem seems to be though, no one wants to give up their two-bit event, and if they can continue to entice players, even lower ranked ones, and get the financial backing required, who should say no to them? Take Monte Carlo, for instance, a point of contention this year, as they wanted to downgrade it but the players revolted. Now I like MC, it is a beautiful setting, and the field is usually quite strong and rather interesting, even though not a single Yank showed up this year. It may be a smaller event, but it manages to roar a bit like a lion. So if they can crank out the money to afford these guys, why not have it? We may almost have to go down the list, tournament by tournament, and look at their merits before decisions get made.

This is a very idiosyncratic sport, with lots of crazy types, so maybe we need to think of it as herding cats. My co-writer at our www.mvn.com/tennis site recently argued that tennis may need a commissioner, someone with a strong personality who can lay down the law. But we suppose pigs will be flying before that happens. And next year we will have more tales like yours wondering why tennis can't get its act together.

Note: Comments are screened, and in some cases edited, before posting. We reserve the right to reject anything we find objectionable.