Down the line: Slam wins deserve precedence in Finals calculations

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  • Stretched: Murray feels the top eight players should play at the World Tour Finals.

    Andy Murray raised an interesting issue last week when he was asked about the possibility of Marin Cilic qualifying to the ATP World Tour Finals even if he doesn’t end the year in the top-eight, by virtue of him being a grand slam champion this season.

    While the year-ending cham­pionships are understood to feature the top eight in the Race to London, the rules state that it’s the top-seven who are guaranteed a spot and that a major champion ranked 8-20 would actually take precedence over the player ranked eighth in the race.

    The rule has always been there, but since Murray is struggling to book his spot in the season finale, which takes place in his home country, British media are calling it a “loophole” and they asked their main man about it a few days ago.

    “If the ATP want their tourna­ments to be the most important tournaments, which I think they do – it’s the ATP World Tour Finals – you would hope that the players who would get in would be those who accumulate the most points across the whole year on the ATP tour,” Murray said.

    “But by putting the grand slam champions in, they would be saying the grand slams are the most important events.”

    I understand Murray’s point. The slams are indeed ITF events and not ATP ones. But there’s no denying that the slams are the most important part of the season and what Cilic has managed to achieve at the US Open, and the way he has achieved it, definitely warrants a place in London.

    We are not used to having four different grand slam champions in one season, and when we did in 2012, it was the Big Four who were very consistent all year round and easily qualified to the Finals.

    But this season, Stan Wawrinka and Cilic have upset the tennis order and the new situation has shed light on a rule that has always been in place. The main reason people are surprised by it is because the Finals have always been advertised as a top-eight event. It is that but with a slight twist.

    The Brits need not worry too much though as Murray has a chance of making it to the O2 next month. He is signed up for Vienna, Valencia and Paris in a desperate attempt to pick up points.

    By London, he would have played six tournaments in six weeks. Let’s hope he has enough energy to actually play the Finals if he does qualify.

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