The Rome Masters starts today and will conclude next Sunday -- 11 days from now. No seeds play today or tomorrow. Day's 1 and 2 are essentially a challenger schedule. Go to Day's 3 and 4 and you get to watch the seeds play a non-seed. Reminder that Day 4 of the 2012 Rome Masters was this:

@ThreadOrder But it wasn’t a two-week event

@ThreadOrder Poor Granollers 😢

A small step toward feeling better

@ThreadOrder I found a couple of the concurrent Challenger finals to be more interesting than Madrid. Some high-level players find other places to play during the 2nd week. It dilutes their product.

@ThreadOrder On day 4 in 2019 they played the entire 2nd and 3rd rounds lol

@ThreadOrder I still think 96 player draws have some place in tennis but I do agree it's maybe too slow. I'd still propose a 10-day compromise, where there would be only 3 off-days at best, and there would be back-to-back matches starting from R16 (or R32 for one half of the draw).

@ThreadOrder And how many of these would a person whose life/work doesn't revolve around tennis be able to watch? I get the player's side but from a fan perspective who can't pause life to watch Day 4 of Rome, I prefer the relaxed format where the matches are spread out and I can catch more.

@ThreadOrder What's the difference with Indian Wells or Miami?

@ThreadOrder But will the ATP come back to a one-week event ? we all hope but 💰