Wimbeldon Seeding System

[Borquat]

The Wimbeldon seeding system has been surrounded in controversy since it's been used, but rather than complain that it is unfair, maybe all Grand Slams should adopt a similar approach. If clay court results had been factored into the seeding at the French Open, a Coria v. Moya quarter final would have been avoided, meaning that the best clay court players would face each other as late in the tournament as possible. The same could be done with hard court results for the US and Aust Opens. This would, like the 32 seeding system, continue to lessen the extent of an unlucky draw and some would argue that "the luck of the draw" adds to the romance of tennis.

[Shhh]

Seems like a common sense suggestion to me. Then again, common sense aint that common

[rhubarb]

If clay court results had been factored into the seeding at the French Open, a Coria v. Moya quarter final would have been avoided, meaning that the best clay court players would face each other as late in the tournament as possible.

I disagree, it wouldn't have helped much. Bob Larson did some analysis on possible seedings, and concluded that even with clay-court results weighted in the same way that AELTC does for Wimbledon, Roddick would have still been seeded 2 because he was such a long way ahead of Coria in points anyway. In any case, it would have been very difficult to get Moya in the top 4 (above Ferrero) which would have been required to avoid the possibility of the Moya-Coria quarter-final.

Similarly we have the case at Wimbledon that Coria, who has never won an ATP match on grass, will most likely be seeded 3 because there is a big points gap below him, whilst Nalbandian and Henman would be considered much better grass-court players (particularly Henman). One of them will end up seeded 5 (don't ask me which - the AELTC chose their formula carefully!), and could be drawn against Federer or Roddick in the quarters. So even the grass weighting doesn't help here.

Having said all that, I do agree with surface-related weighting, particularly on grass, and to a lesser degree on clay, because it does help lower ranked players. But since hard court tournaments are so common, and most players play well on them, I don't really see the point of introducing surface-weighting for the AO and USO.

-rhubarb