Rafael Nadal Right to Say World Tour Finals Should Feature Different Surfaces

It's no secret Rafael Nadal has never won the ATP World Tour Finals—a prestigious event that happens to be contested on the King of Clay's least-favored surface. Therefore, it should be no surprise that Nadal is campaigning for the event to be held at venues that feature other surfaces.

Speaking to reporters, as noted by Courtney Nguyen of SI.com, Nadal made his case:

"

During these nine years the Masters Cup was on indoor, a surface that was not the best for me. So probably for me I was a little bit unlucky in this because in the past we had the Masters Cup on other surfaces. I understand, but I think this is unfair.

In the World Tour Finals, we qualify on all surfaces. It would be a little bit great — I’m not talking about me because I know it won’t happen for my generation, so I’m talking for the next generations — [to have] something more fair to the players and I think for the fans it would be something more interesting to change the surface every year.

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While you could certainly make an argument that Nadal's complaint is strictly selfish, this is an issue that bears further consideration.

The ATP Tour travels all across the globe during the regular season, and the players battle one another on clay, grass and hard surfaces throughout the year. There are specialists who excel on one surface while struggling on others, which makes every tournament more interesting from week to week. 

It's no surprise that Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic have won six of the last seven ATP World Tour Finals; both players excel on hard surfaces.

It only seems fair that the specialists from other surfaces should be given equal chances to shine in the seasonal finale. If the same players are continuously dominating the event, fans eventually lose interest. That's not in the best interest of the ATP Tour.

Nadal isn't the only major star who advocates a change to the current way of doing things, either. 

Djokovic, who is the defending champion, would like to see the ATP World Tour Finals moved around to a new city every three years or less, as Nguyen notes:

"

Because of the promotion of tennis. Just having the popularization of this sport in places where tennis isn’t as popular. I think that if we are looking forward to expand the success and the consciousness of our sport, which is very global, then we should look into that. We should look into allowing other cities in the world compete for this tournament.

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Unfortunately, the final event of the season isn't likely to change any time soon.

As noted by Ravi Ubha of CNN.com, London was granted an extension recently to host the event through 2015, and there's speculation that it isn't going to relinquish its grip on the tournament any time in the future.

The former head of the ATP's commercial division called any potential move a "gamble," and tournament director Andre Silva said it's "definitely" a possibility the tournament will stay on past 2015, according to Ubha. 

However, none of this changes the fact that this tournament would better off as one that moved around from one top location to another every couple of years. Different surfaces in different cities would lead to more exciting competition and a greater influence around the world. 

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