2007 Tennis Channel Open - Round Robin Decision

Round Robin Decision

Since the 2007 Tennis Channel Open featured a round robin formatted draw, an issue arose. Defending champion James Blake, Evgeny Korolev, and Juan Martín del Potro were to play each other and the winner of the round robin who would advance to the quarterfinals was determined by the number of matches and percent of sets and games that were won. Blake lost to Korolev, and Korolev then lost to del Potro. For Blake to advance to the quarterfinals of the 2007 Tennis Channel Open, he had to defeat del Potro, losing no more than five games. In this situation, each player would have won one match each, and Blake would have lost the least amount of games. In the del Potro versus Blake match, Blake, who was winning 6-1, 3-1, beat del Potro because he retired. This eliminated del Potro from such a three-way tie, because he did not complete all of his matches. Korolev then moved on to the next round, since del Potro had been eliminated, and Korolev had already beaten Blake.

This caused a controversial issue that involved fans, Blake, and others, as they felt that Blake was to be in the quarterfinals. A press conference was held, and the ATP, which was chaired by Etienne de Villiers, determined that Blake would have beaten del Potro and thus met the rules for advancement into the quarterfinals. Since neither player knew that del Potro's retirement would result in such a large issue, Blake would have won, and therefore, Blake went into the quarterfinals.

The following morning, however, De Villiers decided that the rules for advancement should not be altered after the tournament's start, and therefore Korolev was entered the quarterfinals. Blake entered the 2007 Indian Wells Masters without being able to defend three of his titles. Later, the round robin format was ended, and all tournaments planning on employing the round robin format were changed back into the original draw format.