On Istanbul Open’s Attendance Woes

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Two weeks of world-class tennis in Istanbul ended on Sunday, first the TEB BNP Paribas Istanbul CUP (WTA) on the last week of April, followed by the TEB BNP Paribas Istanbul Open (ATP) on the first week of May, both taking place at the Koza World of Sports facility in the Esenyurt neighborhood of the greater Istanbul area. I was not here for the Istanbul Cup due to my obligations in my “other” life, but I made it to my hometown on time to catch all the action during the Istanbul Open. Everything that follows, with regard to the attendance woes of the tournament, will be based on my observations during the Istanbul Open. I will add that many people that I know have told me that same type of issues also existed during the previous week, albeit not as blatantly, thanks to the success of two Turkish WTA players reaching the quarterfinals.

My friends, and those who follow me, know that I show great interest in the organizational structure and planning of tournaments, and talk about them often. It is what I plan to do in this article. Istanbul is my hometown, where I was born. I come from the tennis world of the city. I grew up as a tennis player in this same milieus. I want this tournament to succeed. I want the stands to fill up. So, I write a bit more passionately about it than I have for most other tournaments. It may seem like a long post, but there are a lot of pictures and embedded tweets used to clarify the talking points for you, the reader. Having said that, let’s move on to the topic at hand.

There are many contributing factors to the tournament drawing very little amount of on-site spectators. Furthermore, none of this is new. This problem existed in the tournament’s inaugural year 2015, brushed under the carpet thanks to the Roger Federer frenzy that carried the week, and it continued in 2016:

The attendance was a painful issue, once again this year, leading to some people commenting on it on social media. It just looks bad when the stands are empty, and I really mean empty, day after day, match after match.

It was only on the final Sunday, thanks to two top-10 players meeting for the title and the completely unexpected success of Tuna Altuna, a local player who generated much-needed energy by reaching the doubles’ final with his partner Alessandro Motti, that Koza WOS Arena filled up around little more than half-way, between 4500 and 5000 people.

I know 6,700 was the official number given but if you were there, you knew that was an inflated number, in the same way that some universities inflate their attendance numbers above the actual ones through various methods (attendance vs ticket sold vs turnstiles turned, etc) in the College Basketball world of the U.S.A. Yet, nobody who was there all week can deny that “little-more-than-half-full” was a beautiful sight compared to previous days. Here was the attendance on the Raonic vs. Tomic quarterfinal match, at 7 PM on Friday evening:


There is one major contributing factor to this problem, one for which there is no solution in the foreseeable future. The facility is simply too far away from the rest of Istanbul. The Ataturk airport is considered “away from the city center” by many life-long Istanbulites and the tournament site is a considerable distance past the airport. To give you an example, I drove every day from Camlica neighborhood, on the Asian side of Istanbul, but only a few minutes away from the Bosphorus Bridge (the oldest and the busiest of the three bridges that now cross the two continents). It took me anywhere from 1 hour, when I would drive past 10 PM, to over two hours during the day just to go one way! There are a ton of tennis fans living on the Asian side, much further from the bridge than I do, and it takes them longer just to reach the bridge, i.e. add roughly an hour to the trip. People living in the busy neighborhoods of Levent, Etiler, Nisantasi, Bebek, Istinye on the European side, probably spent roughly the same amount of time on the road going one way, meaning it could possibly be a three-to-four-hour affair to go back and forth to the tournament for most of those people. It is thus, a pain to get to the location, a major pain!

Yet, this problem is here to stay. The facility is owned by Garanti Koza, a successful land development company with far-reaching resources part of which they use generously, to their credit and they should be applauded for this, to help the development of Turkish tennis. Furthermore, the construction continues on site to transform it into a state-of-the-art, world-class sports facility. It’s their facility, their point-of-pride (understandably), the tournament is not moving anywhere else, thus the unsolvable problem of location. Istanbul’s infrastructure and the urban public transportation system are simply not there to ease the burden either.

There are, however, smaller issues that exacerbate the problem, ones that are indeed solvable. Let’s keep in mind the central issue: the lack of attendance. Thus, in order to at least ease the burden brought on by uncontrollable factors, one must do all else that remains within one’s power to counter the effect. For example, one can take measures to make the experience pleasant for those who do indeed decide to come, so that they will come back, and encourage others to do so. What should be the primary goal? To make every effort possible to let people know the different ways with which they can get to the site, inform them, do it frequently, do it visibly, and most importantly, do it clearly!

First, it starts with the official website, the number one source for the dissemination of information about the tournament. Let me first point out that the website is an improvement from two years ago, the last time I attended the tournament. It’s nicely designed and has both English and Turkish pages. However, once again, remembering the number one obstacle you are fighting, and the fact that anyone who decides to attend the tournament probably never heard of the site, should the instructions on how to get to the site not be the first thing that appears on it? You type in the web address to Istanbul Open’s homepage, and even if you make the browser full-page, you still don’t see it. You have to scroll down to get to the link that tells you how to get there. In other tournaments, this may be acceptable, but not when the location of your tournament is perennially the main reason why you can’t get people to come out. When I tweeted about the public transportation problem (by which I meant the city’s public transportation system), the tournament director Paul McNamee was quick to point out to me that my tweet was inaccurate, that there was transportation offered (again, my post was about public transportation system and the city’s infrastructure, not the tournament’s sponsor-arranged transportation specifically for the week, but ok..), and had his assistant’s*** phone opened up to the page on which it shows the transportation points, and had her show it to me. That link, more specifically, what it shows on that link, should be the glaring, unmistakable information staring at the person who just arrived to the home page. If not, at least a big bold link saying “Click here for Transportation schedule” should show up, and not be on the lower portion of the page with three other links of same size, where one must scroll down to see. Attendance and location are your main problems: then, make your instructions on how to get there easy-to-reach and visible.

***I will not go into the details of the short dialog that took place between her and I, but anyone involved in public relations of a tournament should have better communication and/or social skills, should definitely keep the second sentence that she said to himself/herself, if anything at all, certainly not say it to a media member (my badge clearly showed that I was), who could easily make a flashy heading for an article, if he/she had bad intentions or aspirations of high clicks or ratings, at the cost of making the tournament look bad (plenty of those around, believe me).

Second, announce relentlessly and continuously that a sponsor has arranged transportation to the tournament site from two key spots in Istanbul. People who use regular public transportation do not automatically become aware of this, because it is not part of the public transportation system. Don’t announce it on the tournament’s facebook page only once, on April 27th, before the Main Draw of the tournament even begins, and then never post it again! Don’t wait until Wednesday of the tournament to announce it for the first time, and the only time, on tournament’s Twitter page! Announce it on social media at least once or twice a day throughout the tournament. Tweet it, Facebook it, Instagram it, tell the broadcasting TV station to remind it to the viewers, every single day, every morning and evening, and get others to do it. Why? Because nobody knew until then about the arranged transportation for the tournament. Here is a great idea to remedy the problem, at least partially, and yet, it is not announced properly. When I was made aware of it, I asked as many people as I could, including people in the world of tennis in Turkey and regular attendees of the tournament, and not a single person said “yes I knew that they set up transportation for this week.” Nobody until that point (we had the conversation on Wednesday) mentioned it either when the lack of attendance was the topic of conversation because, again, they did not know. One facebook post on April 27th and one Tweet on May 3rd are not enough for a tournament taking place throughout the first week of May. When I found about it on Wednesday (May 3rd), I began tweeting about it, underlining it constantly on TV (I was doing daily commentary on the TV station broadcasting the tournament), turning to the camera and literally appealing to the people of Istanbul, to look at the website for the transportation schedule, every day. Yes, I received some feedback from regular listeners and followers saying “thanks” and that they did not know. Unfortunately, I was the only one relentlessly repeating it on either the social media and on TV for people to come and look to the website for transportation schedule. I did not see the same diligence from tournament organizers other than a tweet or two at the most for the rest of the tournament. Below is a tweet from a devoted tennis fan, who had discovered the arranged transportation on that Wednesday, informing other people on the exact location of the bus (translation: “by the Migros located under the stadium”). The website link simply says “by the stadium,” which happens to be Fenerbahce’s big home stadium (50,000+ capacity) and “by the stadium” could be anywhere around it. Good luck walking around that stadium to find the bus. Yes, specifics indeed matter. (Side note: This tennis passionate told me there were only 8 or 9 people in the bus)

Third, make the instructions on how to get there – let me put it in bold letters again – clear! Do not simply assume that everyone owns a GPS-abled phone. It is not enough to instruct those who depend on the directions from the website, to simply “take the Esenyurt Toll Booths exit to reach Garanti Koza Arena” (or the equivalent of on the Turkish version of the page). It is inaccurate, incomplete, misleading, and lazy. You can’t even see toll booths at the exit that you must take, nor does it say anywhere at the exit that there are toll booths. And once you miss the exit and keep going straight on that highway, you end up seeing the tolls on the right. By then, it’s too late, you can’t turn, and there you go swirling around in complicated traffic for another 15-to-20 minutes. If you did manage to take the exit, you don’t just “reach the Garanti Koza Arena.” There are few more turns and splits on the road. The sentence “take the Esenyurt Toll Booths exit to reach Garanti Koza Arena” is anything but accurate. Make the tournament site clear to those who drive up. Have big signs telling people where to turn, and have them at several points, all the way from the toll booths. Perhaps, it’s better to show in pictures:

1) Here is the first time you see the exit as you approach it. As you can see, there are no toll booths within sight, and not even the word “Esenyurt” in this first sign.

2) Then as the exit separates, there is a second sign with Esenyurt on it, but still no toll booths, nor can you see any in the distance. If you remain on the highway (left side) you are lost for 15-20 minutes.

3) If you made it to the toll booths, once you pass them, you come to another road split. It says to go right for “Esenyurt.” You must NOT! You need to stay on the left, which you would not know to do, especially that the site is announced as being located in “Esenyurt.” Now pay attention to the two small signs under the big Esenyurt traffic sign, to the left of the ambulance. The smaller of those signs, the lower one, tells you in small letters to go left for the Istanbul Cup and Istanbul Open. Unfortunately, they are impossible to see if you are driving as you can see from the image, unless you are right up close to them at which point you have already committed to the turn and cannot go back. Could these signs not have been larger? Or better yet, could this not have been explained on the directions rather than saying “take the Esenyurt Toll Booths exit to reach Garanti Koza Arena”?

4) You eventually notice the large Koza WOS Arena on the far right (if you have seen pictures of it), so you feel that you may be approaching. But right here, you must turn right and not go straight (and get lost for another 10-15 minutes), which you could easily do since the Arena straight up the road, on the right side. Again, that “invisible-from-your-car sign” tells you go right, if you can see it while you are driving while frantically trying to figure out where to go. I circled it in orange so you can see which sign I mean. The bigger letters at the bottom say “Parking” and the smaller letters at the top say the names of the tournament (shouldn’t at least that be reversed?). Good luck seeing that from inside your car, which is where I was, when I took this picture.

Fourth, and once and for all, please have a big banner, or some sort of a large sign showing anyone who drives up that there is actually an entrance to the ATP Tennis event taking place, “TEB BNP Paribas ISTANBUL OPEN.” This was the case in 2015, and two years later, there is still not a ‘visible-to-everyone sign’ indicating that you have actually arrived at the entrance of a world-class tennis event! I literally saw dozens of people asking others in buildings nearby where the tournament is, when they were but 50 meters away from the entrance, because they cannot see it. The site is continuously expanding, therefore, there is the constant noise and appearance of construction in the area. This is simply not a pretty sight when you first drive up. It was not in 2015, it is not now. But that is understandable since a world-class sports facility is under construction. However, it is no excuse to make the simple process of parking and finding the entrance to the tournament feel like yet another obstacle. Here are more pictures to clarify further:

1) Let’s pick up from the right turn in the last picture above. This is what you see once you have turned. Now the tournament’s entrance is about 60 meters to the left. Can you tell? Nor can anyone else unless they have already been there or unless they see a big sign of the tournament at the entrance. But, alas..

2) Here is the same street, driving from the other site. The tournament entrance is now to the right, between where the van and the two buses are parked. Again, can you tell? Nor can anyone else coming from this direction. Would a giant, high banner saying “Istanbul Open” help? You bet!

3) I will simply ask the question: Should the entrance to an ATP Event look like this? There are again, two of those small signs on each side, with the words “Turnuva Alani” (meaning “Tournament Area”) added. They are hard to see from your car anyway as you drive past them (and not easy to read unless you are up close to them), and then, they are blocked by people at times(because they are only at about hip-level), or by vehicles at others.

4) The next four pictures illustrate what you see once you walk past the above entrance. (a) You walk a straight path during which you see blue signs ahead saying the tournament’s name, so at least now you know you are headed in the right direction.

(b)You go up two escalators.

(c)Finally, at the top of the second escalator, you arrive to the security and ticket check.

(d) After you go past that, the outside courts are on your left and right, and the impressive Koza WOS Arena is staring at you straight ahead.

The outside area of the tournament is nothing exceptional, but the Koza WOS Arena itself is a wonderful show court to say the least. The players like it, the structure is stunning, and it has a retractable roof. Overall, the tournament is a definite improvement from its inaugural 2015 edition. Paul McNamee, whose tennis past should prove by itself that he is vastly qualified for such position, is obviously an excellent choice as the tournament director. The field of players was also great, featuring two top-10 players in the finals, which happened in only three other ATP 250 events in 2016 and 2017 so far. The players were thankful of how well they were taken care of during their stay. Credit goes to Paul and others who made it a pleasant experience for them.

Nevertheless, there is more to a tournament’s success than the players, and it needs to be a team effort. One person cannot do it all. In all fairness, I would speculate with a certain amount of comfort (for the record, I haven’t talked to him about all this specifically, not that I have not tried) that Paul probably faces the same daunting challenges that the previous two tournament directors faced: trying to make things work in a situation where many elements are out of your control, and sometimes, people to whom you delegate responsibilities do not exactly “get” what you expect them to do in the day-to-day operations.

One must, however, and again I keep coming back to the number one problem facing the tournament – the empty stands -, diligently attack the things that one can fix. Yet, some of the problems I foregrounded above have existed since the first year of the tournament. They are indeed fixable. Once you take care of these (solvable) problem, therefore negate some of the negative effects of the site’s geographical location (the unsolvable problem), and you manage to add a certain amount of a “pleasant” experience to the process of attending the tournament, people may come in larger numbers. It would certainly be worth the effort in order to make attendance numbers improve. But if people have to battle extra elements on top of simply driving/riding for a long time, just to get to the vicinity of the site, they are unlikely to come back, and highly unlikely to talk positively about it to their friends and acquaintances.

I remain hopeful for the years to come.

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Conversation with Steve Flink — 2017 International Tennis Hall of Fame Inductee

Q & A Sitting Across Mertov's Tennis Desk Series No Comments

I have been following Steve Flink’s writings ever since my lifelong passion for tennis began in my childhood years, and continued throughout my playing and coaching years. One of the leading journalists and historians in the tennis arena, Flink’s vast knowledge of our sport is second to none. Moreover, Mr. Flink will be inducted on July 22 of this year at the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, Rhode Island. You can therefore imagine what a great honor it was for me when I got to meet him at the 2016 Wimbledon, the place where his passion for tennis began to take root in the early 1960s. The following day, I had lunch with him during which we chatted, in some detail, about some of the great matches and memorable events in the history of tennis. It was one of the most stimulating conversations I have ever had as a tennis lover, and of course, it helped that those were two of Mr. Flink’s favorite topics to discuss. He did, after all, write two fascinating books (both must-reads for any tennis fan) entitled The Greatest Tennis Matches of the 20th Century (1999) and The Greatest Tennis Matches of All-Time (2012).

In our first chat, we covered a variety of topics such as some of the unforgettable matches in history, the usage of correct terms when discussing historical accomplishments, and the ins and outs of the discussion surrounding the “Greatest of All-time” debate. Below is that chat, only minimally edited for clarification purposes.

Notice: This conversation was also translated into Turkish and initially published in the post-Wimbledon-2016 issue of the magazine Tenis Dunyasi. This is the original English version.

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Thank you for taking the time! Let’s start with where you first caught the “tennis bug.” Can you identify such a moment in your life?

Yes! Right where we are sitting! I was 12 about to turn 13. It was 1965. I had seen a little tennis, I watched the Davis Cup finals for a couple of years in a row in 63 and 64, US vs Australia which was on public broadcasting in the States. I enjoyed watching it but it hadn’t gripped me the way it did later. I mean I was interested in those matches and those guys played, I got to watch Dennis Ralston and I liked him a lot, but it was not until I came out here in 1965 that I caught the bug. My father brought me out here and I was 12, about to turn 13. I came a bunch of times in 65 including the final. But I first came on a cloudy day during the first week and it just [pauses]… just… [shakes his head] completely engulfed me, I guess that would be the word. Then, form that point on, I followed it every day in the newspapers.

Later, I was back in New York, my parents were divorced then. I went to the US Nationals at Forest Hills, which later became the US Open. I went a bunch of times there. My passion grew out of those experiences. The summer of 1965 was the beginning of my passion for tennis.

As someone with a unique insight of a tennis historian on the matter of using correct terms: there are few terms that are often used out of context or incorrectly. For example, when a player wins one of the four elite tournaments, is it correct to say they won a Grand Slam, a Grand Slam event, or a Major? Also, isn’t it incorrect (or unnecessary) to say the “Calendar Year Grand Slam” since the term Grand Slam’s meaning has historically included the completion of that achievement in the same year? Many people, including some of the top players, now say call Majors “Grand Slams” as in for example, saying that Djokovic won a Grand Slam when he won Roland Garros, or that Roger Federer has won “17 Grand Slams.” Along those lines, which is it when the score is 6-6, is it a “tiebreaker” or a “tiebreak”?

Ok, bunch of points to make there. People say – and I even use it sometimes just to make clear and to not have anybody be confused by what the achievement is – “Calendar Year Grand Slam.” In a sense, it’s repetitive, but I think people use that as a clarification means. But obviously the “Grand Slam” is the four Majors in one year. What happened was, players started getting caught saying, way back in the 80s and early 90s, things like “I know next year I am going to win a Grand Slam,” I remember Jennifer Capriati saying this. What she really meant was “a Grand Slam Event.” This is one of the few areas where I disagree with the late Bud Collins. He was a strong believer in that you could absolutely and only call it a Major. I think if you say “Grand Slam Event” or “Grand Slam Championship,” it’s very clear, there is no mistaking it. So, I think these are interchangeable with “Major.” When I write, I use both. Sometimes I call it a Major, sometimes a Grand Slam Event, but the point is that they are both acceptable. I know other historians agree with me that as long as you get that word “event” or “championship” in there, you make the distinction from “Grand Slam” which is only one thing, winning all four Majors in one year. Now, the “Calendar Year” – and I know in some ways it’s a mistake and people claim it is – is added just so people understand, I think, the difference between that and Djokovic winning four straight over two years for example.

I try to be a bit more flexible about these terms, but Bud became very adamant about that, not in the early years, but let’s say, by the last 20 years of his life. He was more and more adamant as the years went by, and I respected him greatly on it, but it reminded me of his feeling about “tiebreak” vs “tiebreaker.” Again, I don’t agree, I think either of them is fine. There is no confusion in the public’s mind. What happened was, and Bud was absolutely right about this, “tiebreaker” was initially what Jimmy Van Alen, the inventor of the tiebreaker, named it. From the time that it was first used at the Majors in 1970, that is how we referred to it. Then, somewhere along the lines, I would say in the late-80s or early-90s, certainly by mid-90s, people from the ITF and other tennis-governing bodies adopted the term “tiebreak.” I did not have a problem with that. I thought “ok, that’s fine, there is not a big difference.” I would use either one personally, I don’t see how there could be any confusion between the two. But again, Bud felt very strongly about it, I respectfully disagreed with him. These were probably the only two things I ever disagreed with him in all the years that I knew him. “Tiebreak” or “tiebreaker,” either is fine.

Speaking of Bud Collins, is there a special dialogue that makes you say “yes, that was Bud Collins” or an anecdote with him that you particularly remember?

Wow, that’s tough! There were so many experiences with him. I think of his humor, his wit. I am not sure if a single one stands out, but one amusing story that makes me think of him was when I had to play tennis against him. He would always put a lot of pressure on you, he would chip and charge a lot, get to the net. He was much better player than he led on by the way. Ground strokes were not that great, but he volleyed beautifully and had a good kick serve. He was tough to play against. So I would start to press on my ground strokes, but I also would start double-faulting. We played a bunch of times, many times over here in England. One particular time, when I began pressing and double-faulting again, he said to me “Steve, just like Hazel Wightman** always said, you can’t double-fault when you get your first serve in.” I thought that summed him up. It was actually good valuable advice, his way of saying “get more first serves in and you won’t fall into that trap.” But only he could say it in such an amusing way.

** “Mrs. Wightie” (1886-1974) was an American tennis player who won 17 Major titles in singles and doubles in the early 1900s.

A second story was when I used to work with him behind the scenes as a statistician. Later, I actually started doing on-air with him in Madison Square Garden during the Virginia Slims Championships. Couple of years after we started, I did a telecast for ESPN. I was a color commentator. He sent me a very nice, thoughtful note in which he said “I watched your telecast from Memphis. You were very good; I was proud of you. Collini.” It was so nice of him to say that because it was not my telecast after all. “Collini” was how he liked to refer to himself. I am trying bring across his humor and his kindness, and I think those two stories epitomize that.

Is it true that in the early 20th century, women played five sets at Wimbledon, and that the committee back then decided to have women three sets because they felt their bodies were more suited for shorter on-court battles?

U.S. did it too. 1902 may have been the cut-off point. They just felt that it was unnecessary and it became the common currency to get away from that and get back to best-of-three. There was a little experimentation with it in the earlier days, it’s true. Just to tie that in, I don’t accept the argument that some people connect it with the ATP Tour or men’s tennis. Advocates of men’s tennis say “to have equal prize money, women are going to have to play best-of-five.” I think that’s foolish.

As a historian of the game, what are few things that you believe have lost their importance, unjustly perhaps, over the years? In other words, what should never be forgotten by the tennis world?

I think the main thing is to remember the efforts of those pioneers, the players that turned pro, particularly in the 1950s, up to 1968 when Open tennis arrived to the scene. All the great players would be signed to play pro. Jack Kramer played the pro tour himself and eventually became a promoter. They would get signed up after they won Wimbledon or the US Nationals, then they would go into the wilderness. They would lose the chance to play the Majors. Obviously, we know that Rod Laver couldn’t play the Majors until 1968, after his first Grand Slam in 1962. Ken Rosewall was gone much longer than that. Lew Hoad barely played in them. So, I think the record keeping is a bit distorted when we just look at the Majors and how many of them a player has won. Some of these great players lost out on the chance to win Majors. Pancho Gonzales, for almost 20 years, from 1949 to 1968. Imagine what he could have done, particularly on grass with his game. He was such a great serve-and-volleyer, he would have won a bundle of Majors, and it didn’t happen. Jack Kramer would have won so many more than the three he got in the amateur years. He said he wanted to write a book called “we were robbed.” To me, that is the thing that is too easily forgotten.

Do you believe the “Greatest of all Times” argument or discussion has its valid place in the world of tennis? Of course, none of us can settle it, but is it a healthy discussion?

Oh sure, it’s a very good discussion. Of course, everybody has to try to be fair. I mean, ESPN recently did something that the Tennis Channel had done 4 or 5 years ago, which is to try to combine the men and the women in this discussion. I had my qualms with that idea because I don’t know how you combine or compare men’s and women’s games. But leaving that aside, the notion of the greatest male or female players of all the time, yes I think it’s a very healthy discussion. Again, there has to be some fairness toward the prior years, to Suzanne Lenglen and Bill Tilden in the 1920s, Alice Marble in the 1930s, and other great players like Don Budge who was the first to win the Grand Slam. They are too easily forgotten and you have to project them into modern times by asking what if they had the same diet, rackets, training abilities. I have always felt that if you took those great players in prior years, and they were taught now, they would be great in any year. So, I think that is the only problem in this discussion. It’s a little too loaded toward the modern generation and not enough respect payed to Tilden, Lenglen, Helen Moody and other great players of the first half of the 20th century.

Even today, sometimes for example, Laver or Bjorn Borg don’t get much respect in men’s tennis because people are emotionally tied to today’s players like Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, and Roger Federer.

That’s true, they don’t, Borg and Laver get lost. Already, and I mean already, it’s hard to believe, Pete Sampras! I mean, when he left the game, many of us thought he was the best of all times, and again, he gets too quickly forgotten in that discussion. Frankly, I would add that if you put all of them together on the court with their playing styles, and settle it that way, Sampras would be the one that would come out on top, except on clay. On any medium-to-fast courts, hard or grass courts, I would take him to beat Djokovic, Nadal, Federer, and any others, because of the nature of his game. The combination of the serve with the attacking game, the big forehand, and his temperament would make him come out on top. Of course, that’s just my opinion. There was a bunch of us who participated in a Tennis Magazine imaginary tournament with the great players of all time. It was one set on clay, one set on hard, and the deciding set would be on grass. Sampras ended up winning that imaginary event defeating Nadal and Federer. We had Djokovic losing to Borg. It came down to the grass court set at the end.

I am just throwing out my view here, but to get back to the original question, yes, it’s a very healthy discussion. Nobody is right, it’s all judgmental, but it promotes tennis and that’s a good thing.

If you had to mention the top three greatest matches that you have ever seen in your life time, what would they be? [Reminder: Flink wrote the book The Greatest Tennis Matches of All-Time, published in 2012]

Well, I wrote a book on the greatest tennis matches of all times so that one comes naturally to me. Nadal vs Federer in 2008, I still believe, was the best that we have ever seen. The quality was so high on all five sets. Couple of 6-4 sets to Nadal, two tiebreakers to Federer, and then a 9-7 in the fifth. The thrill factor, the two best players in the world for the third straight year in the final of Wimbledon, pushing each other to the hill, all played into it. Then, there was the fact that it was a pretty miserably cool day at Wimbledon, yet they lit the place up and withstood all the rain delays. That match stands out to me the most.

Two other men’s matches stand out in different ways. The 1980 Wimbledon final between Borg and John McEnroe was one. I didn’t think I would ever see that match surpassed until Federer and Nadal came along. The other one that is high in my list is the Laver vs Rosewall match in Dallas in 1972, which went to a fifth-set tiebreaker. They were two men who were both slightly past their primes, but it was like they turned the clock back on that day. The Agassi vs Sampras in the 2001 US Open quarterfinals was a similar case in that they were both past their prime but played a phenomenal match. These are the ones that I would mention.

To throw another match out there, what about the 1984 French Open, when Ivan Lendl came back to John McEnroe in five sets?

That one was a great match but I didn’t put it quite up there with some of the others because for two sets McEnroe was just way superior, then Lendl came back and McEnroe got perturbed and upset, the crowd went against him. It maintained a nice quality until the end, but it was dramatic more than anything else. I still didn’t feel the quality was up there with some of the others I mentioned, but it was a pivotal moment in McEnroe’s career, as well as Lendl’s.

Let’s take that match as an example for the next question, or the Federer – Nadal one, or even a match like Fabio Fognini vs Nadal last year at the US Open where one player won the first two sets and the other came back to turn the match into a memorable one. Interjecting that notion into the discussion about perhaps bringing men’s matches down to two-out-of-three set format, would we miss out on the possibility of classics like these matches?

Well, you are right. But I also think, instead, we would get three-set epics. You would have matches that end 7-5 6-7 7-6 that still went three hours. A part of this argument that makes me realize that I may be in the minority. Some of us who are “die-hards,” we can actually sit and watch an entire five-set match with no problem, but I don’t think the typical spectator stays necessarily with a five-set match the way they stay with a three-set match. That would be the argument for the best-of-three format, you may keep the fans more immersed from beginning to end and it’s still a fair test. Having said that, I don’t think the top players are ever going to want to agree to this, because they will feel that there is a better chance that they will get picked off. They would lose an advantage in that they have a better chance to come back in five-set format. So, I don’t think that will ever happen.

My biggest qualm is the fifth-set tiebreak. I am a big believer that it should be used and the US Open is the only Major that does it. I am very baffled by that. We had the famous Isner -Mahut match ending 70-68 in the fifth set, 11 hours and 5 minutes. It ruined them for the rest of the year.

Would you be fine with playing two-out-of-three up to a certain point and switch to the five-set format in the later rounds?

No, that was tested in the 1970s in the French and the US Open, I didn’t like it. I don’t like the idea of suddenly changing the rules when you get to the later rounds. I feel like they are going to stick with the best-of-five format, but the tiebreak should absolutely be used in every set. You put somebody who has been in one of those extra-long matches, and they have a bad disadvantage. Federer suggested the other day that maybe it should be tried at 12-12, I don’t even think that makes sense. Just play it at the same time you play it in any other set at 6-6, and settle it there. It’s better for the fans, and frankly, it puts the players under added pressure, and that is not bad thing for them either. If you haven’t been able to establish a service break lead after 12 games in the set, a tiebreak is perfectly fair to both of them.

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