The problems at this year's Shanghai Masters are proving Andy Murray's point about the 12-day Masters 1000 events, with fans left watching just 22 minutes of singles action on Thursday.
Masters 1000 tournaments are meant to be the pinnacle of the ATP Tour, the premium product. But they have been left feeling like soulless, empty tournaments that drag on far longer than they should and seem to have more hours without any action than with it. At least that has been the case over the last few days of the Shanghai Masters.
In recent years, seven of the nine Masters 1000 events on the men's circuit have been extended to last 12 days. When these tournaments run alongside a concurrent WTA 1000 competition, it is alright. Indian Wells and Miami work well because they are their own swing, with no buildup to a Grand Slam tournament. Madrid and Rome feel unnecessarily long when Roland Garros is looming, but at least there are fewer gaps in the schedule, with the men and women competing. Canada and Cincinnati have also already seen plenty of top players drop out since moving to the week-and-a-half-long format last year.
Shanghai's stretched schedule
But the Shanghai Masters may be the worst showing of this 12-day schedule. It is an exciting tournament – we saw the Valentin Vacherot fairytale last year, and there have been finals between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray. But it does not need to last any more than a week.
The tournament began last Wednesday, with none of the top 32 seeds in action until Friday. And then, by this Tuesday, there were down to four singles matches a day. Two in the day session, two at night. It meant hours passed with no play in the middle of the afternoon. As of Thursday, there are two singles matches a day. They have – for some reason – split the four quarter-finals across two days. One in the day session, one in the night session.
Some unfortunate retirements have left the schedule even more exposed. On Wednesday, Felix Auger-Aliassime picked up a knee injury and retired against Casper Ruud, bringing the day session to an early end. It was worse on Thursday, when Arthur Gea had to retire against Alejandro Davidovich Fokina. After just 22 minutes, the only singles match that day-session ticket-holders got to see was over.
Players and officials call for change
Most top players have already been very vocal about their disdain for the 12-day Masters, and Carlos Alcaraz is among those who have threatened to take breaks and skip tournaments to get some respite from the bloated calendar. He now seems to favour ATP 500 events, which are a level below the Masters, but still last just one week, have good draws, and still offer decent points and prize money.
Former world No. 1 Murray was never a fan of this extended format back when it was first floated, and he still believes the tournaments need to make a U-turn. "I also don’t like the [12-day] Masters events. I think [the ATP] needs to change that back. The players don’t like it," he recently told The Times. "The tournaments are now missing out on top players going to play in them, because they’re not going to play Cincinnati and Canada before the US Open because that’s a really long stretch away. I don’t think it works. I don’t think it’s a good thing for the product that all the players are complaining about the schedule."
Murray is right. Since Canada and Cincinnati both became 12-day events last summer – they run one after the other over the span of three weeks – none of Alcaraz, Djokovic, or Jannik Sinner has competed in the Canadian Open. Tournament director Valerie Tetreault has already called for action. "We believe the frequency of these last-minute withdrawals in the last few years raises a broader issue for our sport," she said after Sinner and Djokovic pulled out of Montreal this summer. "Masters 1000 events are among the flagship tournaments on the tour, and fans rightfully expect to see the world's best compete."
Tetreault is not wrong. The Masters 1000s are the flagship. And yet they are being devalued by the extended schedules. You cannot have a premium product that misses out on top players and spreads the exciting latter rounds across several days. These tournaments need a rethink – or they will become a bad bar of chocolate.
