Not to belabor the point, but when someone breaks it down like this...
I'm with Craig, Karen, Mad Prof and co. People argue that Venus' seeding had been bumped up in the past which is true - in '05 her injury protected ranking determined her seeding. In '07 she was already seeded (31) but bumped up to 23 - hardly comparable to vaulting 35 places above your ranking...furthermore no one was pushed out of the seeds because of it (Bondarenko.)
What is critical in all of this is that on both occasions people could argue about the inconsistency and madness of the rankings of the seeding (non-)system for women, or about the wrongs or rights of the decision but no-one could argue that any existing rules at that time had been violated on Venus' behalf.
Presently, injury protected rankings can no longer determine seedings. Furthermore, since 2001 the discretionary power to shuffle seeds was limited to shifting players *amongst* the top 32. Last time I checked, no. 59 in the world is not in the top 32.
And I just don't buy the argument that they are making such a notable exception for Maria because of her grass court credentials, or because they really care about balancing the draw because the words "Amelie Mauresmo" spring to mind.
Amelie is equally as accomplished at Wimbledon as Maria is (Champion, 2X semi-finalist). She's also had her share of ill-health and struggles. She missed the clay court season in 2008 and at Wimbledon was seeded in the 25-32 range, and had been the Champion two years ago.
Both Amelie and the draw as a whole would have benefitted from her moving up into 19-24 range, but *surprise surprise* they did nothing about it and clearly couldn't have cared less about a balanced draw. Instead, a bruising Serena-Amelie 3rd round battle ensued and they were both left to their respective fates.
So - why for Sharapova, but not for Mauresmo?
If they were just honest and transparent and followed the rankings or weren't so absurdly sexist and used the Entry System Position (ESP) that they use for men then EITHER way, no way in hell would Maria be seeded.
(ESP takes your current ranking into account, and 100 % points won at Wimbledon last year, and 75% points won in the previous year.)
no. 59 + R2 exit + R16 exit? (Maria's results.) Doesn't get you the number 24 seeding, full-stop.
Interestingly enough, under this system Safina could not be the number 1 seed since she's never been beyond the 3rd round of Wimbledon in any given year. If they ranked the women the same way as they do the men, then Venus would be indisputably the top seed, with Serena second - and it would actually balance the draw.
From: Wimbledon Seeds
0 comments:
Post a Comment