Readers show their displeasure with Vegas disaster

	Vegas top seed James Blake was waved through after an opponent withdrew, then was eliminated upon an official review. AP
	MAILBAG Jon Wertheim will answer questions from SI.com users in his mailbag every Wednesday. Your name: Your e-mail address: Your home town: Enter your question:

I just looked at the draw sheet for last week's Tennis Channel Open: first a qualifying bracket, then a "main draw elimination" bracket (e.g., more qualifying), followed by a round-robin competition and then finally the "finals round." Is it just me or is this complete madness?

I understand that tournament directors want to keep the stars at an event as long as possible, but such a complicated format makes it nearly impossible for anyone to comprehend the results. Is local attendance really boosted by the opportunity to watch a "star" play in a match where the stakes are unclear and/or non-existent? Also, I expect that most of the tennis-consuming public avidly reads about the sport and watches it on TV but rarely attends an actual event. Isn't the sport ultimately better served by making sure that the millions of fans who cannot attend a live match can understand and be engaged in the results they read about?
-- Colin, New York

I'm thinking -- you know, for the sake of clarity -- maybe there could be a separate rankings list just for round-robin play. This would complement the ATP rankings, points race and the U.S. Open Series race.

We had a lot of round-robin bashing this week, but I wanted to use Colin's question because it goes to issues beyond the Blake-Korolev fiasco. Even if the ATP can close the technical loopholes, it becomes clear to me that -- as Colin eloquently explains -- round robin is philosophically flawed.

I understand the concern that tournaments want a safeguard against "name players" losing and was willing to give round robin a chance. But this is a Pyrric victory. Round robin is entirely too complicated for both the fans on-site and those trying to follow the event from home. Players, predictably, have already found ways to abuse the system. The whole event is shrouded with the feel of an exhibition.

We'll say this again: If you're a promoter and you really want to ensure some return on your appearance fee investment, demand that your stars play doubles as well as singles. Andy Roddick could play alongside the program vendor and it would still make for an entertaining night session in, say, Indianapolis or Memphis.

It's hard to crack on folks who are willing to innovate. But the ATP ought to have the good sense to realize this noble experiment failed. The NHL did away with the glowing puck. The NBA just reversed on the "new ball." Time for tennis to put this "experiment" in the drawer alongside spaghetti-stringed rackets, and move onto to the next idea. No shame in that.

Revisiting the impossible-to-resolve "Tiger vs. Federer" debate: in particular, the pro-Tiger argument that he has it tougher, because to win a tournament he has to beat the entire field, whereas Fed only has to beat seven guys. I wasn't buying into that, even before Tiger lost to Nick O'Hern (again) at the recent match-play event. But do you think Tiger would be happy if the format of golf's four majors was switched from stroke-play to match-play? Can you have one of your colleagues (Alan Shipnuck?) ask him for me?
-- Dave Gabel, Los Angeles

Alan, you out there? Want to weigh in? I think Dave raises a good point, though. Yes, Tiger has to beat a "field" while Federer technically only has to beat a few guys. The converse is that, playing a field, Woods can go off his game for an entire day and still make up the ground. Federer comes out flat and an hour later he's in the locker room, booking his trip to the next event. That's pressure. (Take a look at this SI.com blog if you want to see how passionate the debate has been about who's more dominant, Federer or Woods.)

I meant to do this a few weeks ago, but I'd like to throw Scott Draper's name into this conversation. A few years ago, I saw Draper take Federer to match point in Cincinnati. Draper was no star, but he had plenty of talent, beat players on the order of Andre Agassi, Alex Corretja, Jim Courier, Pat Rafter (on grass), Boris Becker (on grass), etc. Last month he won an event on the Australasian tour in Australia and now has designs of playing on the PGA tour.

This feat obviously says plenty about Draper. But it also tells me plenty about the relative merits of tennis and golf. In your wildest dreams, could you imagine a golf pro walking off the course, changing into shorts, heading to a tennis court and winning the equivalent event? We're not talking about someone getting lucky and winning a match here. We're talking about some Jonathan Kay or some Scott Verplank trading their clubs for a racket and winning the friggin' title. Absolutely inconceivable, right?