Hamburg Masters: A Misfit in the Hard-Court Continuation

Technically the clay court season is supposed to be done and dusted, but going by the itinerary of the ATP organisers, there is still one last event to be contested—The Hamburg Masters, or The Hamburg World Tour event in the advent of its most recent "downsizing."

The event, which always used to be held before the French Slam, not only got postponed because of the inclusion of Madrid Masters as a red-dirt competition instead of the indoor tournament it originally was, but also got demoted, or, to put it more politely, "downscaled" to an ATP World Tour event (500 points).

But even if its points contribution got re-shuffled in any way, the confounding part is trying to figure out the organisers postponed the event to a time when the sport and its players enter the neutral ground of hard courts?

They could have still held the event during the clay season as an addition to the already prevailing ones in the fray rather than push and postpone the tournament to a time when the sport and the players enter a common ground with regard to the playing surface.

Hard-court tournaments constitute around 80-90 percent of a tennis season, and, as such, every player is well-accustomed to playing on it, as opposed to a partisan attitude or a comfort level that he develops with either clay or grass.

Moreover, there is also a thought that the organisers at Hamburg aren't too pleased with the ATP's decision to change the tournament's status all of a sudden, because this would mean that most of the top-ranked players will consider giving it a miss.

If this is the case and the organisers are holding the event as a silent rebellion of their own against the ATP, and to make the top-ranked players participate because of the time gap created, then (again) it doesn't make any sense. Why? The top-ranked players will look forward to solidify their position in the hard courts and use them as a preparatory for Flushing Meadows rather than go back in time, so to speak.

It's common knowledge that the remainder of the playing action (not counting some of the Davis Cup matches) is going to be on this playing surface—both outdoor as well as indoor—and, as such, holding a clay-court tournament in the midst of these events is like taking a huge gamble, the organisers and participating players' benefit being the biggest thing at stake!