Countdown to 2009...I can already here those Abilene winds a blowing.

Well, 2008 is all but in the bag now. Interesting to see if the weak economy has any impact on tournament draw sizes next year. Perhaps the cheaper price of gasoline will more than offset the continued upward spiral in entry fees. To me, it seemed that the tournament scene lost a lot of steam around the time that Ike came through and screwed up Sectionals. The Sectionals makeup was largely a joke with so many players not being able to make it, but I still am glad USTA rescheduled and did not cancel. I also think it was the right thing to postpone it instead of playing it as scheduled and giving a big F U to all of the Houston and coastal players who had much bigger things to be worrying about that weekend.

Maybe its because I did not personally play in many tournaments this year, but I felt that this was one of the less exciting years we have had here in Texas as far as tournaments tennis is concerned. Please feel free to disagree if you felt otherwise. I think not having the Master's Cup count towards qualifying next year may help since that will open it up a bit and give more people a chance at getting the needed points. Plus I think USTA needs to consider 2 more things: 1) instituting ranking point penalties for no-shows, and 2) a reworking of consolation in major zones to make them more meaningful and increase consolation participation in the smaller draws so as 5.0. In terms of penalties for no-shows, I think each player should be given 1 major zone no show without penalty and after that, each major you sign up for and do not show up, the 0 points from that event will count as one of your five countable results for the year. That would likely prevent a few of the guys we know have a history of signing up and never showing up from screwing up seeding at tournaments, etc. For instance, sign up for all 8 majors and only bother going to 4 of them, well guess what you will end up with three 0's and two other results for your final total. As far as consolation, I think that, there should also be a penalty such as points being deducted from qualifying (for master's cup and year end ranking) totals for not bothering to play consolation. For instance, whatever the point value of a consolation match (30 in majors? maybe its 25, I can't remember right now) could be deducted for every tournament in which you are in consolation but decide not to stick around and play. Loss in the 1st round of 3 major zones and decide not to play consolation, well guess what, you will have 90 ranking points deducted from your total ranking points (best 5 total). This would force the top guys and anyone else who cares about their ranking from thinking that consolation is a waste of their time so they will just go home. Open, 5.0 and to a lesser extent, 4.5 are horrible in terms of consolation participation. This could fix that. Anyway, those are just some thoughts I have, it's not like I am exactly commissioner of tennis or anything.