Re: Ajla Tomljanović vs America
Reply #82 –
Only if they had a monopoly, if it's the same for everybody it's no advantage.
Whether a tournament starts with 200 or 20, the last few opponents are likely to be the same quality.
Back in the 50s, 60s and 70s, they use to play challenge matches, one off head to head games of the best going around at the time against the best. Not joke matches for charity like they play now, but serious events exposing the best to the best outside of an open framework. Some clubs still run formats like this to establish who's the better player, a long running format design to rank the best players. Many old world individual sports ran the same way, golf, billiards, snooker, wherever a head to head competition was found. You couldn't avoid the better opponents, you never got the luck of them being a shock omission. One of the reasons this diminished was that as the money grew players started refusing challenges, making excuses for not playing an opponent, because ranking means income. It's a pity this has subsided, because if not gamed it really does filter the best of the best.