UEFA Champions League Set to Undergo Radical Format Change Inspired From Tennis

Tennis is one of the most followed sports in the world. Although being an individual sport the role of both, nationality and individuality matters equally. In tennis, a player’s ability and caliber are the keys to entry into important tournaments. However, there is no fixed quota for nationality in participation.

But, tournaments like the Olympic games and Davis Cup have nation-based participation. Other than that, the participation in ATP and WTA tournaments is purely based individually, and frequently we see compatriots fighting it out for their ATP and WTA titles.

Reportedly, One of the most followed tournaments, the Champions League, will overhaul its knockout stage on the tennis model.

Champions League Set for Tennis Style Knockout Overhaul

As per the recent news, Champions League will get a complete overhaul and will be based on the tennis Grand Slam model. Also, the country protection rule is not applicable in this format. Notably, this eventually will result in the possibility of two franchises from the same country facing each other in early knockout rounds.

The Grand Slam tournaments have a knockout format for qualification. Where players are put in draws and the winner progresses to the next round. While the loser drops out. It is one of the simplest ways to ensure that the competition keeps increasing as the rounds progress. And two of the top performers in the tournament play in the finals.

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Further, as stated in the ESPN report, all 24 clubs who progress into the knockout stages of the competition will have their route right through to the final seeded and pre-drawn. The draws will be largely based on the group rankings of football teams. And eventually, the top two teams will meet each other directly in the finals. The revamped model will come into play from the 2024-25 season.

The Wimbledon Seeding System

In any tennis Grand Slam, organizers seed the top 32 players for the tournament. For other grand slams, it is based on the ATP rankings. However, the system of ranking differs slightly for the grass court-based Grand Slam.

In Wimbledon, the seeding system for men is completely different. The formula for calculating points is like this. ATP Entry System Position points + 100% points earned for all grass court tournaments in the past 12 months + 75% points earned for the best grass-court tournament in the 12 months before that. They added the bonus points to normal ATP points to draw the top 32 seeds.

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This format ensures that the best 32 players are actually the ones who have excelled on the grass court. As tennis is played on three different courts (Grass, Clay, and Hard). Although a good player excels on all three simultaneously, still every player has his strengths and weaknesses on different courts. The system designed by Wimbledon ensures the audience gets to see the best grass-court players competing in the most prestigious grass-court tournament.