Sport: When No.1 Mean's No.4

Back in the late 1990's and early Noughties there was a lot of sniggering in the Music world about manufactured British pop bands like Westlife, Steps and that one that Rachael whatshername was in releasing singles deliberately on weak sales weeks just so they could get to number 1 and appear to be more successful than they really were. A similar thing happens in sport Manchester United ended top of the Premier League last season with a modest record against the other top 4 teams yet always manage to roll out a 1-0 win against the crapper sides where as Arsenal had a decent record against the other big boys but finished fourth. However in recent years Tennis has been the sport in which being No.1 has been more like a confirmation that your good but not the best in the world especially among the women.

Take Dinara Safina she has been number 1 on the WTA ranking list since april of this year she is just under 1000 points ahead of her nearest rival Serena Williams, therefore she is the best player in the world right?. Unfortunately for Safina the world and his misses knows that this is bollocks, yes she's been to three glam slam finals in one she lost to Serena winning a mere 3 games and in her most competitive, the French Open versus Ivanovic, now not even a top tenner, she won a grand total of seven games. Even Kutznetsova never someone with an persona of a champion manage to out do her at the French Open. This was followed by even more humiliation at Wimbledon, when she should of loss to Mauresmo in the round of 16, but somehow battled through to the Semifinals only to then get trashed by Venus Williams winning a mere game. The reason for this is the way the ranking system of tennis works, despite various changes to focus on the slams over years, the system still and will always favour the work horses. The ITF argues its fair because it takes points from your best 15 tournaments. The problem is that someone like Safina can play 30 tournaments a year have 15 good ones and 15 shit one's but only the 15 good ones count. Instead Serena and Venus the unofficial 1 &2 in the world play about 10 tournaments half of which are treated like a practice in the park yet are still able to kick arse when it matters in the majors. Serena has won just a mere two tournaments this year, it just so happens they are the Australian Open and Wimbledon, and the last tournament Serena won before the Aussie Open, yep the US Open. Clearly she is No.1 the WTA knows it, Serena definetley knows it and Safina knows it. This was never a problem 10 years ago in the early 90's Seles was number 1 and boy was she number 1 no fucker could get near her not even Graf, people came to watch her because they knew they were watching an all time great and with the persona of a champion, so much so to stop her being number 1 a mad bastard had to stab her. Then Graf became no.1 who had been a solid no.2 before the Seles incident, but with Seles off the tour, at least Graf also had the persona of a great again so much so that the fellow female players bet on the length of time it would take for them to get beaten by her. The WTA has now lost this since the late 1990's there have been a whole host of number 1's who everyone knew weren't really no 1's they didn't have the persona of champions Jankovic ended last year no.1 but didn't win a major and it was left to Venus Williams who won the end of year championships, beating Jankovic on route, to say that the tour needs to award quality not quantity. The US open will start next week Safina will be the top seed but the bookies will put five other women ahead or her most likely Sharapova, Dementiavia, even Perhaps Kim Clijsters after two year lay off and of course the true 1&2 Venus and Serena. Whatever happens there's a big chance Safina will remain number one after it, most probably not having won it, unfortunately for her like a crap no.1 record that made it to the top spot selling a few thousand in a particular slow selling week she will never be remembered like a classic number two, three or four even.