Next weekend the eighth edition of the Mubadala World Tennis Championship (MWTC) takes place.
There are different ways of looking at the line-up of six stars who will be gracing the courts at Zayed Sports City. One way is to note the participations of Rafael Nadal, Milos Raonic, David Ferrer, Stan Wawrinka, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Kevin Anderson and count four players in the top 10 rankings as they stand (and all six from the world’s top 14 players).
There is the current holder of the French Open in it. One of the greatest players of all time – if not the greatest – and a 14-time grand slam title winner is also present.
The remaining four, meanwhile, are no mugs. Between them Raonic, Ferrer, Tsonga and Anderson have 48 ATP tour titles (Ferrer alone has 26, among the great unheralded players of the age).
That cannot be a bad draw.
Another way you might choose to look at it – and perhaps the glass on those desks is half-empty – is to note the absence of the world’s top three players and wonder whether the glamour that is so indelibly associated with what is an exhibition event is a little dimmed.
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For the first time in the tournament’s seven editions, for instance, the world’s No 1 player will not be present in Abu Dhabi over the New Year weekend.
The top two – Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray – will be especially missed, not only because of their rankings but because they are regulars here (both have participated in four tournaments) and multiple winners: Djokovic is a three-time winner and Murray twice.
It will be the first time that only one of the great quartet of players who have dominated men’s tennis in this era will be present.
Yet to fret that the quality of tennis next weekend stands lessened would be foolhardy. The instructive example is the 2012 tournament.
That year, on Christmas evening, two days before the event was due to begin, Nadal told organisers he would not be able to make it, a long-standing knee injury and stomach complaint compelling him to pull out.
It could have been gone wrong, especially as Murray was also surprisingly beaten in the first match on Thursday. A weekend without Murray or Nadal, even with Djokovic present, felt like it may lack, well, a little glamour.
At the very last minute turned up the unheralded but 11th-ranked (at the time) Spaniard Nicolas Almagro. And Almagro, with that big, beautiful, one-handed backhand in tow, actually lit up the tournament, first beating Janko Tipsarevic and then taking Djokovic to three sets in the final. That remains one of the tournament’s most entertaining finals.
Almagro was no mug either, of course and had 12 tour victories to his name by then. But it is fair to say the casual tennis fan would have known little about him. It has simply become the nature of men’s tennis over the last decade that outside the top 10 lies faceless territory, populated by men who are not Nadal, Federer, Murray, Djokovic or, now, Wawrinka.
If there is a point, it is that the line-up for this year’s tournament, though it does not have the big stars that it usually possesses, should be no lesser for it.
As well as the big names – and perhaps because of them – it has become almost customary for talk during the weekend to turn to the status of the event.
It has lessened over the last two editions, but in some form it will most likely re-emerge this time: should the MWTC aspire to be an ATP Tour event, perhaps as part of a Desert swing, which sees players play here, in Doha and then in Dubai.
It is, of course, an attractive idea.
Players who take part have said almost every year that it either should be an ATP event, or that it can easily become one. But arguments against that remain pretty compelling.
For a start, it is practically difficult – given how packed the ATP calendar is every year, fitting this one will not be straightforward. And once it is an ATP event, will the same calibre of players turn up every year as they do now, given that most events function on a mix of qualifiers and wild cards as well?
It might also dilute the wonderful community feel of the event.
Instead, if it is still serving the purpose those who participate seek from it – near-ideal conditions to warm up for the new season – then what is the point changing it?
osamiuddin@thenational.ae
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