MELBOURNE – The Italian exacted revenge for his 2015 defeat with a stunning victory over Nick Kyrgios at the Australian Open on Wednesday. All of the top players always score easy wins during the first week of Grand Slam events; it would be more entertaining if the organizers decided to reduce the number of seeded players.
The case of Nicolas Almagro – who took the court on Monday for only 23 minutes, retired after four games and collected $37,000 – prevented a healthier tennis player from earning the same amount of money. The incident caused major controversy as the Spaniard was suffering from an injury that forced him to retire in the previous tournament. Had he withdrawn from the Australian Open before the tournament started, he would have given a more deserving player the opportunity to fully compete, treat the spectators to a better match and earn a considerable amount of money. During his post-match press conference, Almagro defended himself against the allegations by claiming that he accumulated enough wealth in his career and didn’t necessarily step on the court on Monday for the money: “I was a top-ten player and made more than 10 million dollars,” he explained.
Since last year the ATP has been trying to find a solution to this problem by offering the first round prize-money to injured players who withdraw before the tournament begins and make their spot available to healthier players. It is also important to mention that Grand Slam events offer much more money than any ATP tournament as their turnover is remarkably higher. Each Grand Slam tournament is approximately worth 320 million dollars and 20% are distributed among the players in the shape of prize-money (25 million dollars). Each ATP Masters 1000 event posts revenues amounting to roughly 30 million and “only” 6 million are offered as prize-money, which is less than 10%.
I believe that Grand Slam events should make a bigger effort in order to avoid those embarrassing situations with limping players that take the court only for a few minutes and leave the tournament with a considerable amount of money.
Today a significant number of seeded players posted unexpected losses; four women and four men in total. The two most notable casualties were No. 10 Carla Suarez Navarro in the women’s tournament and No. 7 Marin Cilic in the men’s. Cilic was defeated by Dan Evans of Great Britain, who last year almost defeated Stan Wawrinka at the US Open. After saving a match point against the Brit, Wawrinka went on to win the tournament.
Other seeds that left the women’s tournament were No. 20 Shuai Zhang defeated by Alison Riske, No. 27 Irina Camelia Begu defeated by Kristina Pliskova, and No. 29 and Olympic gold medalist Monica Puig defeated by Mona Barthel. In the men’s event, No. 14 Nick Kyrgios lost to Andreas Seppi and No. 19 John Isner succumbed to Mischa Zverev.
A total of 19 out of 64 seeds have been defeated so far during the first three days of competition. In this regard, I would certainly bring back the old system that listed only sixteen seeds in each draw. At the end of the day, protecting thirty-two players doesn’t really make much sense. The thirty-two seeding system was initially introduced to ensure that the top players wouldn’t draw any dark horses in the early rounds, but time proved that the best players in the world always sail safe and sound into the second week and don’t necessarily need any more assistance. The system ended up protecting the players ranked between the 19th and 32th spots and preventing the game from having an exciting diversification in the rankings. Today massive upsets are extremely rare, which makes the early rounds less interesting.
World No. 1 and defending champion Angie Kerber survived the challenge presented by countrywoman Carina Witthoeft in a tough second-round match that lasted two hours and eight minutes. Kerber eventually prevailed in three sets, 62 67 62. An unexpected loss would have completely spoiled Kerber’s plans for her 29th birthday; the German could instead enjoy the birthday wishes from 15,000 spectators who sang “Happy Birthday” in chorus at the end of the match on center court.
The craziest and most dramatic match of the day was played by the Italian Andreas Seppi and Australia’s prodigal son Nick Kyrgios. Two years ago Seppi stunned the tennis world when he defeated Roger Federer, but in the following round he ended up losing a five set thriller to Kyrgios. Today Kyrgios won the first two sets; then Seppi started an astonishing comeback, saved a match point deep in the fifth set and emerged as the winner with the score of 10-8 in the decisive set. Seppi – who won 18 out of 29 five-setters in his career – will now face Steve Darcis of Belgium.
Kyrgios’ surprising defeat bitterly disappointed the Australian fans, who had high expectations for the Canberra native and crowd favorite. Bernard Tomic’s second round win was a slim consolation at best. Mark Edmondson still remains the last Australian player to win his home tournament in 1976, more than forty years ago.
(Article translation provided by T&L Global – Translation & Language Solutions – www.t-global.com )
