1. The final set tie-break to remain for rounds 1 to semi-finals of both the men’s
and women’s singles and doubles tournaments, until the final of all four
disciplines, where the final set tie-break will not take place. So for the finals of
the men’s and women’s singles and doubles, if there is a final set then you will
have to win by two clear games (advantage), just like the season’s first three
majors.
1. Hawkeye line technology to be used on clay courts at all major WTA and
ATP tour events, in singles and doubles. This will culminate with
Hawkeye being used at Roland Garros in Singles, Doubles and Mixed
doubles and all other events for both men and women. Hawkeye line
technology on clay courts to be in place for the 2015 or 2016 seasons.
Tournaments to use Hawk-Eye:
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Rio (Joint)
Charleston
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Monte-Carlo
Barcelona
Stuttgart
Madrid (Joint)
Rome (Joint)
Hamburg
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Appearance money on ATP and WTA Tournaments and any other
tournaments in Tennis, to be totally scrapped. Players must play because
they want to and on their own merits, not because they were persuaded to
by having more money.

Much has been talked about the time players (men and women), take
between serving and how this slows matches down and makes them
longer than usual. Players like Rafael Nadal and Maria Sharapova have
always naturally been slower than others in between points, so they’ll
always take longer than most. I suggest either having a stop-clock
counting down from 25 seconds after every point, for both ATP/WTA
tournaments and most importantly Grand Slams or, scrapping the 20/25
sec rule for all players in all events on both tours. If a player does take too
much time, then the umpire should enforce the rule. However especially
after a really long, gruelling rally, they should be allowed more time than
usual to recover for the next point. So really either properly enforce it or
make it more strict and stringent or scrap it altogether and just let the
players take adequate time (not too long though) between points.
1. Major change for Women’s singles grand slam tennis. All 4 Tennis Grand
Slams WS finals to be played under best of five sets for the 2015 season.
All 4 SFs will come in for the 2016 season. So for rounds 1 till
quarterfinals to be played under normal best of 3 sets, then it will change
to best of five sets for the semi’s and finals. This rule change applies just
to women’s singles and not to women’s doubles.
*This is by far the biggest and most important change that has to come into
Women’s Grand Slam Tennis. This year at Wimbledon, we celebrated 130 years
of Women’s Tennis and many milestones have been made in those 130 long
years, not least the formation of the WTA Tour to equal prize money at all 4
Majors, finally in 2007. It is now time for the last big change to come into effect
for Female players at the Grand Slams: that of best of five sets Finals and SemiFinals. The Women today are fitter, stronger, more powerful and agile, better
defensively, more intimidating, recovering quicker and playing longer into their
30’s and can more than handle the gruelling conditions of 5 set matches. The
only time where women have played best of five sets at a Grand Slam was at the
US Open from 1891-1901. 5 of those 11 finals went the full distance. The last time
women played best of five sets, was at the WTA Finals from 1984-1998. 6 of those
16 finals went 4 sets, with 3 going to 5 sets. The Divas of Women’s tennis today,
with the Williams Sisters, Sharapova, Kviotva, Azarenka, Wozniacki and the
plethora of rising stars of the future, are better in more or less all aspects than
the players of 80-s to 90s and no doubt better than those who played 5 sets from
1891-1901. There is no medical or scientific reason whatsoever to say that women
cannot play best of 5 sets at the Majors, all we are asking is for just 2 rounds-the
last 2 rounds to be played under best of 5 sets rule. The WTA players are more
than ready to play 5 sets, they have done for years in fact- fatigue is no factor at
all. The female players want it and I’m sure the male players would like to see if
the women can hack it over 4 and a half hours over 5 sets, going 10-10 in the
deciding set. Finally by just limiting it to the SF and Finals, it would in no way at
all affect the men’s SF or Finals. Wimbledon, Roland Garros and the US open all
play the Men’s SF on one day and the Women’s on another. The Australian
Open plays one Men’s SF on the same day as both of the Women’s. But this
again will not affect the men, as we have day and night matches in Melbourne.
2. New tournaments for 2016 WTA Tour Calendar:
 Wk 2, 11th January: WTA Chengdu: Sichuan Tennis Centre,
International hard-court. (Tap into the WTA’s leading market of
Asian Tennis, due to huge popularity of trailblazers Li Na, Peng Shuai
and Zheng Jie. Chengdu is the birthplace of 2-time Grand Slam SF:
Zheng Jie and 2 time Grand Slam doubles Champion- Yan Zi. (both
with Zheng Jie in 2006). Would be played on the last week before the
Australian Open to go with the theme of ATP/WTA events being
played in the Asia/Pacific region). Currently, Men’s Champions
Tour play a tournament there, as do the ITF Tour as well.

Wk 5, 8th February: WTA Quito: International clay-court. Joins
with the men’s event to become joint ATP/WTA Tournament
(Increases promotion to South America Region, with the 2016 Rio
Olympics coming. Therefore it makes it 4 South American events
with: Florianopolis, Rio & Bogota). Same week as the Fed Cup
QFs, just like we have a South American tournament (WTA Bogota),
in the same week as the Fed Cup SFs.
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Wk 18, 25th April: WTA Munich: Joint International clay-court.
(The women’s tournament would be boosted by the men’s event,
especially as German Women’s tennis is on a significant rise, with
Lisicki, Kerber, Petkovic, Beck, Barthel and Goerges. Plus it would be
very easy and popular especially for the German players to play back
to back Home events in Stuttgart and Munich).
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Wk 21, 16th May: WTA Geneva: Joint international clay-court
with Inaugural ATP Tournament. (Also very important since the
WTA Tour no longer has any events being played in Switzerland since
Zurich 2008. Significant to have a Swiss WTA tournament due to rise
of future star Belinda Bencic and resurgence of Timea Bacsinszky, in
addition to already established players in Stefani Voegele and Romina
Oprandi. So in the final week before the French Open, there would be
2 ATP/WTA tournaments in France (Nice & Strasbourg) and 2 in
Switzerland).
3. For the 2016 season, the Inaugural WTA Masters 1000 series to take place.
Tournaments that are already Premier Mandatory i.e. Indian Wells Masters,
Miami Masters, Madrid Masters and Beijing Masters to be a part of the
series. Currently the Premier 5 events: Rome, Cincinnati, Rogers Cup
(Montreal/ Toronto), to also be a part of the inaugural series. The women
will have 7 Masters 1,000 series tournaments. Exact same formation as the
men’s version, with Beijing the only one as a 1,000 event on the Women’s
Tour. (This is subject to change, with 2 versions available)
1st Masters: Indian Wells- Joint
2nd Masters: Miami- Joint
3rd Masters: Madrid- Joint
4th Masters: Rome (upgraded from Premier 5) - Joint
5th Masters: WTA Rogers Cup: Toronto/Montreal (upgraded from Premier 5)
6th Masters: Cincinnati (upgraded from Premier 5) - Joint
7th Masters: Beijing
3.1: Or you could have the Rogers Cup (even though it’s older and the women’s
event was played first) remain a Premier 5 event and have the Cincinnati Masters
become a joint Masters 1,000 event on both tours (following the first 4 MS
tournaments), which it would increase promotion of Women’s Tennis, as it’s a
joint ATP/WTA event. As a result it would then look like this.

Indian Wells, Miami, Madrid, Rome, Cincinnati, Beijing= 6 Masters
1,000 events
3.2: Premier 5 Tournaments: Dubai, Charleston (upgraded from
premier), Eastbourne (upgraded from premier), Rogers Cup and
Wuhan. (If there were 6 Masters 1000 events, with the Rogers Cup
remaining a Premier 5 tournament)

If there were 7 Masters 1000 events, then Premier 5 formations could be
this:

Dubai, *Doha (upgraded back to Premier 5, rather than alternating with
Dubai. So it would be back to back Middle Eastern P5 events), Charleston,
Eastbourne and Wuhan.
2. Premier Level Tournaments:
Brisbane, Sydney, Antwerp, Doha*- (alternating with Dubai)
Birmingham, Stuttgart, Stanford, Connecticut, Tokyo, Moscow, Linz.
(Upgraded from international). (11 Premier events if 6 M1000 tournaments. 10
if 7 M1000 tournaments).
3. International Tournaments: Auckland, Shenzhen, Hobart, Chengdu,
Quito, Kaohsiung, Rio, Acapulco, Monterrey, Kuala Lumpur,
Katowice, Bogota, Marrakech, Strasbourg, Munich, Geneva,
Nottingham, Hertogenbosch, Bucharest, Bastad, Istanbul, Bad
Gastein, Florianopolis, Washington, Quebec City, Tokyo- (Int), Seoul,
Guangzhou, Tashkent, Hong Kong, Tianjin, Luxembourg, Nanchang,
Majorca, Louisville, Prague.
Stacey Allaster- the CEO and Chairman of the WTA Tour, recently expressed
her desire to renaming the tournament levels of Premier Mandatory to Premier,
as it wasn’t self-explanatory. The name changes I propose are fairly simple and
in some ways reflect the hierarchy of each tournament level. Completely
understand also if some people find the name changes and the reasons given, as
silly and childish.

To differentiate the WTA Masters 1000 tournaments (if they were
implemented), from the established ATP Masters 1000 Series, the WTA
could instead call their version (the female equivalent): The Diamond 1000
Series. Why, well as cliché as it may sound- diamonds really are a girl’s
best friend. They’re more precious and rarer than gold and this would
reflect the tournament level, that after the Grand Slams, the most soughtafter titles are the Diamond 1000 events.
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I would consider renaming the 5 Premier tournaments to: WTA
Platinum or Platinum5. Why Platinum, well as simple as it may sound,
Platinum is a more precious and rarer metal than Gold.
Finally I would consider renaming the Premier tournament level to: WTA
Gold. Why Gold, well after diamonds, people like Gold jewellery the
most. It’s more common than Platinum even if less precious and well
really who doesn’t like anything that’s gold.
By changing the Tournament levels to these names, everyone will get and
understand the hierarchy as it’s known in society that Platinum is more precious
and expensive than gold. Diamonds are rarer and expensive than Gold and are
the hardest known material on the planet. So fans of Tennis will instantly know
that if you play a WTA Gold event, you’ll get less prise money and points than a
Platinum5 tournament and so and so forth with Plaitnum5 events. So if you play
a Diamond 1000 tournament, you know that you’ll receive more points and
money than Platinum5, but less than the ultimate: Grand Slams. Finally this
model is actually used in the Music industry, where if an album, record or single
sells a certain amount, they are certified as Gold, Platinum or Diamond.
This is what the Tournament Levels would like then, with the suggested
renaming changes:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
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Grand Slams
WTA Finals
Diamond 1000 Series
WTA Platinum or Platinum5
WTA Gold
WTA International
The ATP World Tour Finals rule of automatic qualification for seasonal
Grand Slam singles and Doubles Champion (if they qualify out of the top 8
places), to be totally scrapped for both disciplines. It is unfair, out of date
and looks out of touch with the WTA Finals, where only the best 8 players
of that season qualify. No guarantee and special preference is given to
someone who has won a major that season on the WTA Tour and
honestly shouldn’t be on the ATP Tour as well. Tough luck if you win a
Grand Slam that year and don’t qualify because you’re not in the top 8
Race. It also important you perform well at the Non-major events.