Emma Raducanu’s former coach, Mark Petchey, has outlined his plans to change the seeding system at Grand Slams.
Since the 2001 season, the top 32 ranked players at Grand Slams are awarded a seed, which means they cannot play another seed until the third round at the earliest.
It gives the top players a slight buffer, which in turn allows more of a chance of the biggest players in the sport reaching the latter stages of the tournament.
However, Petchey believes it could be time to drastically cut down on the amount of seeds allowed at Grand Slams to give the majors an injection of excitement.
Speaking on The Big T, Petchey said: “I honestly feel that because of the way that we look at rankings and the way that we look at seedings, we end up taking away from the sport. I actually think that we should get away with seedings.
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“I am sitting on the fence of not going full medieval and saying zero seedings. But I am starting to think that maybe we just have four. In the majors we used to have just 16. I just think in many ways seeding is about protection.”
Petchey believes it would allow for the bigger players to play each other earlier on, which would create excitement for fans.
“I think if you put the drama and sport first, can you imagine a player ranked five in the world playing someone ranked six in the world.
“And also if you did the draw once the entry list was done, almost six weeks out, people would have an idea of who is going to play who on each day. You could then dynamically sell tickets if five plays six in the world on the first day.
“Those tickets would then sell for me because everybody is going to get super interested in that match, whereas at the moment it’s a slow burn up, where you charge more for the final because it’s the championship match.
“But you make every day in that case far more valuable, because you suddenly have this huge match, which nobody in the past has been expecting.”
“I appreciate people want to see Alcaraz and Sinner in the finals, but there is a part of me that wonders if tennis can be run better. Anybody working in tennis who says this is the best product and can’t be any better is deluding themselves. I’m not saying these are the ideas we should use, but I do think there is a way of putting the sport first and players to a degree second.”
The current top four on the ATP Tour are Jannik Sinner, Carlos Alcaraz, Alexander Zverev, and Felix Auger-Aliassime.
Should they remain the same for, say, the US Open, then the likes of Novak Djokovic, Ben Shelton, Taylor Fritz, and Alex de Minaur could all face each other in round one.
While it would see the best players exit in their droves, it could create more of a buzz for the opening week of a Grand Slam, which can usually be quite slow.
Additionally, a player who managed to win a Grand Slam under these rules would really have to earn it in theory, so it could come with more kudos.
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