If you quickly glance and the above bracket it looks perfectly normal. The 1 seed faces off a against a 5 seed and a 3 seed faces a 7 seed. If you saw that in the NCAA tournament your thought process would read, hmm I guess the #2 seed got upset early. But take a closer look. If you look at the labels above the designated matchups you will see a miss match. The 1 seed faces the 5 seed in the quarterfinals, shouldn't that be the semis? And then it hits you, that's not the entire draw, that's simply the top portion of the Women's draw. The top portion which is quite obviously more difficult than anything that could be constructed in the lower portion of the bracket. Why? Because the only thing that isn't random in a Tennis Draw is the separation of the #1 and #2 seeds.
Perhaps I'm a stickler for organization and common sense, but what the hell is wrong with the typical NCAA tournament-esque bracket. What's wrong with the 4 and 5 seed facing each other in the quarterfinals, the 1 seed facing the winner of that match in the semifinals and then facing the winner of the 2 vs. 3 match in the finals. Shouldn't their be some sort of benefit towards being the best player on the planet? Shouldn't those that are not the best player have to go over additional hurdles to win a Major Tournament.
In the Men's Draw there is again another poor consequence to randomness. Obviously the favorite for the Australian Open was/is Roger Federer. He's the favorite for everything not in the country of France. But for those not overly familiar with tennis the #2 choice for odds makers was not Rafael Nadal but rather 20 year old Serbian Novak Djokovic. Djokovic is making his 4th consecutive Grand Slam semifinal appearance including a finals loss to Federer at the US Open and is currently #3 in the world. So logic would say he would face Nadal in the semifinals for the opportunity to face Federer in the finals. But of course logic is wrong. Nadal if he can get by a Frenchman will await the winner of the 2 tournament favorites.
Perhaps my thought process of saving the best for last is wrong but to me structure is certianly better than unfair chaos.
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