Experimental - Advanced Entry for ATP doubles

[R. Jayakrishnan]

ATP says,

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August 19 , 2004

Advance Doubles Entry System has First Deadline at the US Open

The experiment with an advance entry system for doubles will start after the US Open and will last until the end of the 2004 ATP season. Teams wishing to enter Beijing, Bucharest and/or Delray Beach using their combined doubles ranking must submit their entries by 5 p.m. Monday, August 30, to either the Monte Carlo or Ponte Vedra ATP offices, or to a Player Services staff member on site at the US Open. For the remainder of the year, the deadlines for doubles entries using doubles ranking will be 14 days before the main draw begins.

The system will only be used for the doubles direct acceptance spots (team in which both players are using their doubles ranking to get in). Players can enter all the available tournaments in any given week (players will be ask to provide their priorities with regards to those events). However, players can only enter with one partner per week. Entry lists will be available every Tuesday after the deadline with only the direct acceptances for each event (no alternate teams on the entry list). The ATP will not compile preliminary cuts or lists.

The deadline for withdrawing from the doubles event is 12 noon (tournament local time) on the Saturday prior to the start of the main draw. If one player withdraws, his partner will have until 6 p.m. (local time) on the Saturday prior to the main draw to find a partner with a sufficient doubles ranking to keep the team within the original cut. In case the player does not find a partner or in case the team withdraws, the spot that became vacant will be filled by the highest team on the on-site alternate sign-in sheet. The doubles on-site alternate sign-in closes at 6 pm (local time) on the Saturday prior to the start of the main draw.

Sign-in for the singles/best ranking spots will continue to be done on site and will close at 6 p.m. on the Saturday prior to the start of the main draw.

Deadlines
August 30th - Beijing, Bucharest, Delray Beach
September 13th - Bangkok, Palermo, Shanghai
September 20th - Lyon, Tokyo
September 27th - Metz, Moscow, Vienna
October 4th - AMS Madrid
October 11th - Basel, Stockholm, St. Petersburg
October 18th - AMS Paris
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FYI,

Jay

[zikmat]

Hi Jay,
I am not an expert on the Entry ranking System, so I was just wondering what 's new in this for the double entry system (I didn't know how it worked before...) ?

[seb]

there is normally no in advance entry system for doubles.
the teams have to show up at the signing (on site - 1 or 2 days before commencement of doubles draw) and to have the chance that they can enter the draw.

I can imagine that some players have been travelling and when they arrived at the signing, they couldn't enter the draw because they had a too low ranking . I think that this experimental systems aims to prevent this kind of annoying situation.

Personnal opinion: if I was the ATP, only players that have participate to the single event (qualies or MD) or who attempted to enter the qualies draw by being on site would be allowed to enter the doubles draw (exception: Wild Cards in the main draw).

[R. Jayakrishnan]

Seb: That is not going to work. What about the guys who are playing doubles at the end of the week (the good doubles players among the singles players - not just the doubles specialists). All the QF, SF and F players in doubles are playing Friday-through-Sunday somewhere else, may be in another country.

I will agree with your suggestion if they would schedule doubles for the firs 4 days and finish it off Monday-Thu. Fat chance for that.

No need for all that. The current entry rules based on singles ranks and the spots reserved for singles players are slowly changing the situation. The number of doubles specialists has dwindled to just about 20-25 guys now. No need to be so harsh on them - after all they are there because they play doubles seriously. The singles players who wanted to play soime good doubles who were being kept out of doubles draws by the specialists are all always getting a chance to play these days. Once a few more of them start playing doubles a bit more seriously, we can increase the number of spots based on singles ranks.

Ideally, we would have some 6 spots for doubles only players, 6 spots for singles only players, 2 wildcards and 2 qualifying teams

By the way, there will be no reason (soon) for ATP to not have qualifying spots in doubles like they have -- well, currently they have done that to completely prevent any doubles specialists from coming up for the next couple of years by creating a big break for themselves and getting big ATP event points (it is nearly impossible to crack into ATP level doubles with challenger level points - as we discussed in another thread recnely) ... There won't be any doubles specialists in a couple of years once the really good ones like the Knowles, Nestor, Paes, Bhupathi, Black, Ullyett are gone (except for the Bryans who are still quite young) .. may be Ram and Erlich or somebody like that. But basically very few doubles specialists. No need to be harsh on them for being very good at what they do. I agree that we should not encourgae players to drop singles easily. Rather we should be doing more to get singles players to play doubles.

How about a different point system which adds doubles points to the singles rankings for a combined single rank?

Jay

[Guest]

[Expletive edited out. This is moderated space. Make a point if you have one. Do not just say an expletive. Thanks - your friendly moderator]

[seb]

About my suggestions: players still playing a tournament of a previous week may sign in by phone...

Your point on the disparition of doubles specialists is very clever...
I don't have a lot of mercy with disparition of doubles specialists because I think they are a handicap for tournaments: costs a lot of money and are not very popular (except Davis Cup / Olympics), in France at least.
I think countries like England or India have more tradition with doubles.

Another solution would be to make doubles event optional fo all tournaments, but it would be the end of this discipline...

I am FOR qualifying event for doubles.

I know my option is contradictory