Male players had been clamoring for a longer off-season.  The women just had their championship conclude the past week, so they are, for the most part, done (oddly enough, they run additional tournaments after the year-end championship).

The ATP has to placate many tournament organizers who like hosting a world-class event.  While tennis pundits (looking at you Jon Wertheim) can easily dismiss huge parts of the schedule for the sake of the fan, these tournaments aren’t likely to give up their spot on the schedule without a fight.  Hamburg didn’t like being demoted to an ATP 500 event to be replaced by Madrid, formerly an indoor tournament (now replaced by Valencia), as the complement to Rome as one of the two required tournaments.

So, the powers-that-be opted to remove the free week between Paris and London.  When they made that decision, I figured many pros who have qualified for London would opt to lose early in Paris to prep for London.

And you’ve seen that happen.  Djokovic lost to Querrey after being up a set and a break.  Murray won a match, but lost to Jerzy Janowicz after being up a set and a break (see a similar theme?).  Janko Tipsarevic had to wait for all sorts of players to lose to guarantee that he’d be the last one standing.  Once Almagro and Raonic were out, Tipsarevic knew he was in.  He had just enough points that Gilles Simon, the only other player within reach, could not overtake him, even if Simon won the tournament.

Indeed, Berdych just lost to Simon, Tipsarevic retired to Janowicz after winning the first set.  Llodra and Querrey (in one quarterfinal) still have motivation to win.  Tsonga and Ferrer, bless their hearts, are still in the tournament, and one has to advance to the semifinals.  Would Ferrer lose on purpose just for London?  He’s shown the kind of resiliency to play tournament after tournament, so he may not bother being so conservative.

The big beneficiary of all this “strategic losing” is Jerzy Janowicz, the colossus from Poland.  He’s 21 and 6’8″.  He already has more top ten wins than most players “beating” Murray and Tipsarevic back to back.  You might think players like Janowicz would realize what Murray is doing, but honestly, it doesn’t seem to matter.

Remember last year when Murray was in a slump and lost to Alex Bogomolov and Donald Young in back to back tournaments?  Both went on to have great years.  They felt their victories were genuine and the confidence boost helped their results the rest of the year.  Janowicz may feel the same.

Paris might not feel so glum, however.  When top players opt not to win the tournament, it leaves the relatively large French contingent a bigger chance to win a hometown title.  For two years, the Masters 1000 have been dominated by the top 4.  This year, only Federer, Djokovic, and Nadal have won Master 1000 titles.  This will change because those three players are out.

They may want to create a buffer tournament, maybe an ATP 250, between Paris and London.  It might even offer a desperate person a chance to qualify for London, or they could simply forbid those points from counting to the year-end championship qualification.