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I've had a bit of a left field concept in regards to men's tennis over the past 40 years - what if world tennis was played in a Premier League format?
I've gone back to 1974, the first full year of official rankings, and compiled the 20 highest ranked pairs by nationality out of the 26 I could find within the rankings, which at that point only went down to about 235. They will play each other country home and away, with each match containing 4 'sets' - each country's 2 players will play each of the country's pair. I will be using Ultimate Tennis Statistics' Hypothetical Matchups to do the games, although this means I will be unable to present the scores in a traditional format and will instead be presented as a sort of best of 20 format, albeit going all the way to 20 points regardless of whether you've wrapped it up by point 11. Sets can be drawn 10-10, and like cricket, will be omitted from the final match score. 'Matches' (4 sets) can be drawn as well, just like in the Premier League. An average match might look like this:
United States (J.Connors, S.Smith) vs Australia (J.Newcombe, K.Rosewall)
3rd March 1974, Grass
Jimmy Connors 8-12 Ken Rosewall
Stan Smith 10-10 John Newcombe
Jimmy Connors 8-12 John Newcombe
Stan Smith 9-11 Ken Rosewall
Final Score: Australia 3-0 (45-35) United States
Man of the Match: Ken Rosewall (AUS) (2-0, 23-17)
Each country has a 'home court advantage', which is just adjusting which surface they play on based on the surface of the country's top event in that year. However, this may or may not actually translate into an advantage for the individual players; for example, Jimmy Connors lost both matches on the US Open's grass court, but would have dominated had it been on a hard surface except the US Open didn't go to a hard surface until 1978. I can also have the matches set on a certain date in the match simulator, leading to even more diversity in the results. I'm confident I can reflect real life ability with this simulator.
I'll be starting the 1974 season shortly, having already compiled my 20 teams. Each new season/year, I will go over the rankings and see how the teams need to be rejigged; every year the countries will always have their top 2 players as their primary players, regardless of Premier League results, and the teams remain the same until the squads are adjusted at the beginning of the next season. The exception to this is injuries - I will completely randomise these, and when they occur, a country can call up its next highest ranked player to represent them for the duration of the injury.
There were only 26 nations with 2 players in the latest 1973 rankings, so I cut off 6 nations. I will add a second division once I have at least 16 extra countries, and will keep adding until I reach a 20-team second division, and the process will repeat again - a third division added when we reach another 16 countries on top of that. I will only have promotion and relegation when there is a league underneath them, or when a country fails to supply at least 2 players, in which case they will be replaced with the highest ranked pair from a country outside the league system or the best team from the next league that missed promotion.
Bit confusing for now, hope it becomes a bit clearer as it goes on.
I've gone back to 1974, the first full year of official rankings, and compiled the 20 highest ranked pairs by nationality out of the 26 I could find within the rankings, which at that point only went down to about 235. They will play each other country home and away, with each match containing 4 'sets' - each country's 2 players will play each of the country's pair. I will be using Ultimate Tennis Statistics' Hypothetical Matchups to do the games, although this means I will be unable to present the scores in a traditional format and will instead be presented as a sort of best of 20 format, albeit going all the way to 20 points regardless of whether you've wrapped it up by point 11. Sets can be drawn 10-10, and like cricket, will be omitted from the final match score. 'Matches' (4 sets) can be drawn as well, just like in the Premier League. An average match might look like this:
United States (J.Connors, S.Smith) vs Australia (J.Newcombe, K.Rosewall)
3rd March 1974, Grass
Jimmy Connors 8-12 Ken Rosewall
Stan Smith 10-10 John Newcombe
Jimmy Connors 8-12 John Newcombe
Stan Smith 9-11 Ken Rosewall
Final Score: Australia 3-0 (45-35) United States
Man of the Match: Ken Rosewall (AUS) (2-0, 23-17)
Each country has a 'home court advantage', which is just adjusting which surface they play on based on the surface of the country's top event in that year. However, this may or may not actually translate into an advantage for the individual players; for example, Jimmy Connors lost both matches on the US Open's grass court, but would have dominated had it been on a hard surface except the US Open didn't go to a hard surface until 1978. I can also have the matches set on a certain date in the match simulator, leading to even more diversity in the results. I'm confident I can reflect real life ability with this simulator.
I'll be starting the 1974 season shortly, having already compiled my 20 teams. Each new season/year, I will go over the rankings and see how the teams need to be rejigged; every year the countries will always have their top 2 players as their primary players, regardless of Premier League results, and the teams remain the same until the squads are adjusted at the beginning of the next season. The exception to this is injuries - I will completely randomise these, and when they occur, a country can call up its next highest ranked player to represent them for the duration of the injury.
There were only 26 nations with 2 players in the latest 1973 rankings, so I cut off 6 nations. I will add a second division once I have at least 16 extra countries, and will keep adding until I reach a 20-team second division, and the process will repeat again - a third division added when we reach another 16 countries on top of that. I will only have promotion and relegation when there is a league underneath them, or when a country fails to supply at least 2 players, in which case they will be replaced with the highest ranked pair from a country outside the league system or the best team from the next league that missed promotion.
Bit confusing for now, hope it becomes a bit clearer as it goes on.
