By Sandra Harwitt
tennisreporters.net

Call me a purist, but I wish they'd stop tinkering with a game that is just fine as it is.

When the 2000 season started, the folks who think it's their job to fix tennis decided to change the way the sets were played – instead of having a changeover after every odd game, at the beginning of each set we now play three games in a row before taking a breather.

The purpose behind this was to speed up the game and make it more attractive for TV networks to air the sport. I am still waiting for someone to show me the numbers confirming that so much time has been saved by this maneuver that the TV networks are knocking the doors down to cover tennis.

In truth, I hate the three games in a row concept now as much or more then when it started in January 2000. Instead of waiting for only two games, you have to wait for three games for the next changeover to take your seats – that's a longer wait for the spectator, who bought a ticket to the matches, to actually see the match.

Earlier this week, the Grand Slam committee announced their newest innovation to fix tennis – they will seed 32 players instead of 16 at all the Grand Slams in the future.

Presumably, the reasoning behind this newest repair by the powers that be is to prevent the top names from meeting too weighty an opponent and falling by the wayside in the first round.

Hello – is this the Venus Williams rule?

And whose fault is it that Venus arrived at the French Open without enough practice and match play to be formidable enough to hold off Barbara Schett of Austria. The way I see it is, the No. 2 seeded Williams is to blame, or got unlucky, or whatever, but the draw was fair and she couldn't make the grade against Schett, a former Top Tenner, in the first round.

Better luck next time!

In actuality, the idea of giving the Top 16 seeds the security of knowing they can't run into No. 17 through No. 32 in the first round is only a temporary solution since they could start running into those closely ranked players in the second round.

It also seems as if the notion of seeding 32 players was an attempt to placate certain players – such as clay court artisans – when they aren't seeded according to their ranking at Wimbledon, where the grass is not always greener for everyone with a racket in hand. Here's the rub – a player such as Alex Corretja, who just was in his second career French Open final and ranked amongst the Top 10 in the world, isn't going to be happy with Wimbledon if he's not seeded according to his world No. 9 ranking. Let's face it, neither Corretja or his Spanish compatriot, No. 4 ranked Juan Carlos Ferrero, are going to say thanks for seeding us someplace in the Top 32 and no problem that we're not seeded by our actual rankings. Presumably, we can expect Corretja and Ferrero will be heading to the beautiful Spanish beaches and be sending the All-England a stern message – Thanks, but no thanks – if they aren't placed in the draw according to where they place out in the rankings.

Players have already started to scoff at this newest brainstorm of seeding 32 competitors. Leading the pack is the reigning U.S. Open champion Marat Safin, who has mostly been in a slump since claiming his first Grand Slam title last September.

"If you're not good enough at the time you should be seeded 16 or even not seeded,"' said Safin, at this week's Queen's Club tournament. "Come on. Why should I be seeded one if I am 20? Because I won the U.S. Open. But, after that, I couldn't win one match for five months?

"I think it will not work. Players should be seeded the way they are in the rankings. I'm three, and I'm happy with three. It's going to be a headache for everybody. No, it's not going to work."'

Part of the excitement of tennis is seeing that some of the best and the brightest players in the game can be vulnerable right from the outset at major tournaments – it considered the element of surprise in sports.

This newest attempt to fix tennis – seeding 32 players at the Grand Slams – is likely to be seen by many as a sly attempt to attempt to fix the draw – not to mention make for some very boring first round matches.