• Aiur
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  • Registered: May. 22, 2009
  • Posts: 277

Topic: Season long tournament instead of just the 4 Slams?

I personally love fantasy tennis or tennis pick em', and I really like this site. My only 'complaint' is that you can only pick players for 4 tournaments. My idea was basically this:

1. Instead of just using Slams, Masters Events would be used as well.

2. The limit of players for Masters Events would be cut in half from 8 to 4. Since there are only 16 seeded players at Masters Events, this is how it would work. You would be able to select two players ranked 1-8, two players ranked 9-16, and one unseeded player. Since the top 8 players receive a bye, a player seeded 9-16 or unseeded would get slightly more points for playing an extra round. Basically, this is how it would break down:

For a player seeded 1-8:

1st round: Bye
2nd round win: 8 points
3rd round win: 16 points
QF win: 32 points
SF win: 64 points
Final win: 128 points

2nd round loss: 0 points
3rd round loss: 8 points
QF loss: 16 points
SF loss: 32 points
Final loss: 64 points

For a player seeded 9-16 an unseeded players:

1st round win: 4 points
2nd round win: 8 points
3rd round win: 16 points
QF win: 32 points
SF win: 64 points
Final win: 128 points

1st round loss: 0 points
2nd round loss: 4 points
3rd round loss: 8 points
QF loss: 16 points
SF loss: 32 points
Final loss: 64 points

There would be no match selector like in the Slams, so the scoring format of the Slams would not have to be changed, as you would still be able to get a lot more points out of the Slams.

3. A leaderboard would be kept to track everyone point wise (much like it is now with the Slams, but it would just add up after every event).

4. Instead of giving out cash prizes after each Slam, a larger cash prize would be given out either after the French Open (basically half the season) and the US Open, or just one large sum solely after the US Open. If the half-season route is chosen, the leaderboard would reset after the French Open.

Anyway, this is my idea to keeping the site more active and to possibly generate more interest. Any feedback would be great.

  • Registered: Dec. 26, 2008
  • Posts: 217

Re: Season long tournament instead of just the 4 Slams?

Hi Aiur,

I really appreciate your taking the time to share this idea. One of the reasons we created GSFT was because we are not able to carefully watch both the slams and other tournaments each year. There is over 100 hours of TV coverage for each grand slam, and as much as we love tennis it would be too difficult for us to closely follow other tournaments as well. The other issue is data entry. We are able to handle the data entry for the slams, but we do not yet have the capacity to enter the data for all matches in all tournaments. Right now our goal is to build the site and generate excitement as a fantasy game that is specific to grand slams, and in the future when we have enough interest, more teams, and more resources we would definitely consider adding in other tournaments.

We will be adding in a calendar year Grand Slam annual game starting with the Australian Open. Each team's points for the entire year across all slams will be added together and the person with the most points will receive a Grand Slam prize.

One thing we would really like help with is promoting the site. It would be great if a few weeks before the Australian Open you could mention our site to any other tennis fans you know or post info about it on any other tennis forums you visit. We are growing at a good pace, but I think the more tennis fans we have using the site the more fun it will be for everyone.

Thanks!
-Charles

  • Aiur
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  • Registered: May. 22, 2009
  • Posts: 277

Re: Season long tournament instead of just the 4 Slams?

- I don't really see how getting match results could be a problem. You can get the match results from ESPN, Yahoo, or even the official site for the event itself.

- Data entry I could understand to a degree. I know it is tough to keep player rankings and whatnot, but if you update the player rankings every week (Yahoo updates the rankings every week so they could just be copied), then it shouldn't be too hard to maintain.

Also, there would only be a total of 11 tournaments on the season. The schedule would look like this:

January - Australian Open
March -BNP Paribas Open
March - Sony Ericsson Open
April - Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters
April - Internazionali BNL d'Italia
May - Mutua Madrileña Masters Madrid
May - French Open
June - Wimbledon
August - Rogers Cup
August - Western & Southern Financial Group Masters & Women's Open
August - US Open

There are a couple more Masters Events, but I think ending the season after the US Open would be best. I know some of the months can be hectic with 2 or even 3 events per month, but it could be done.

- I think it's tough to generate interest for the site because if you join at the wrong time (like right after the Australian Open or after the US Open) you might forget to come back when the next Grand Slam is up. And even if a bunch of people join for the Australian Open, they might not remember to come back after the 4 month layoff until the French Open. I know that even with my schedule there is a pretty long layoff, but getting in another two tournaments before the French Open would get things rolling very well.

I know I am still new here, but I could definitely help if you would allow me to. I know for a fact I could easily handle the database aspect from week to week, keeping track of at least the top 100 with a speadsheet.

  • Registered: Dec. 26, 2008
  • Posts: 217

Re: Season long tournament instead of just the 4 Slams?

Hi Aiur,

We created this site because we did not want a year long fantasy tennis site - we did not like having to keep track of so many tournaments throughout the year, and if you miss one or two tournaments because you are busy then you are basically out of the running, and this was not fun for us. We love tennis, and we wanted a fantasy site that focused specifically on the slams. We might consider expanding what we do in the future, but only after this site becomes much bigger and more popular. At that time we would take a vote to see if there is demand for a more expanded fantasy game. The changes you suggest also require quite a bit of back and front end programming, and the site is just not big enough yet to warrant such a fast expansion of what we do. But, your offer to help is very kind. If you are available, it would be very nice if you could help us a bit for the Australian Open. We can discuss more when the tournament gets closer.

Thanks,
Charles

  • Aiur
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  • Registered: May. 22, 2009
  • Posts: 277

Re: Season long tournament instead of just the 4 Slams?

Yea, I'm not an expert on programming...yet. I'll be taking a year long class in programming soon, but right now I couldn't help with any of that. I'll definitely be around for the Australian Open. I'll try to advertise the site as well.