The International Tennis Federation, which supervises Grand Slam tournaments, might think that there’s nothing wrong with maintaining the current system for the year’s four major championships. Have a draw, just like always. Create some suspense. Generate excitement and buzz. After all, it’s the way things are done around here, right?

That line of argumentation has merit as long as there’s no really good reason to change. Tennis doesn’t need to do something different just for the heck of it. No entity or organization should switch gears just to “freshen things up” or “see what will happen.” Change has to have a purpose.

After watching the first night session of the 2009 Australian Open, it’s clear that the ITF and the Grand Slams truly need to handle the seeding and bracketing of their events in a different manner. It’s time to use the standardized seeding system used by other professional sports leagues.

Just ask Andreas Seppi.

The 24-year-old Italian lost in straight sets to No. 2 seed Roger Federer, 6-1, 7-6 (4), 7-5, on Monday night at Rod Laver Arena. After getting thoroughly outclassed in set one, Seppi fought bravely against the 13-time Grand Slam champion, and earned a set point on Federer’s serve in the twelfth game of the second set. Unfortunately, Seppi tightened up in key moments. An 0-for-10 success rate on break points–including that one set point–sealed the Italian’s demise.

Seppi played well enough to beat anyone outside the top 20 of the men’s tour, but not Federer. Not in the tournament where the Swiss superstar hopes to tie Pete Sampras’s all-time record of 14 Grand Slam titles.

This raises an interesting question: Just what is Andreas Seppi’s ranking?

Glad you asked. It’s 35.

Yes, the No. 35 player in the world–participating in a field of 128–drew the No. 2 player in the first round. Something’s very wrong with this picture.

Seppi wasn’t actually assaulted by any member of the ITF. Yet, in a manner of speaking, it’s entirely fair to say that Seppi–for all intents and purposes–was robbed at tennis gunpoint by the current Grand Slam seeding and bracketing system.

There have been other examples of seeding silliness in recent Grand Slam events. Just to give one example among many, the 2007 U.S. Open saw Novak Djokovic–then ranked third in the world–draw another No. 35 player, Radek Stepanek, in the second round. After barely surviving an epic five-set match that nearly reached the five-hour mark, an exhausted Djokovic had to question his inordinately difficult draw. Stepanek, for his part, had to wonder why he wasn’t collecting a fourth-round paycheck of nearly $100,000. His second-round prize–roughly two-fifths as much–had to feel like a very inadequate amount of compensation. After all, Stepanek now has an attractive girlfriend–Nicole Vaidisova–to entertain. (Okay, so life for tennis players isn’t all that difficult in the bigger scheme of things…) Andreas Seppi has to know now what Radek Stepanek felt a year and a half ago in New York.

Tennis players–like any other elite professional athletes–invest too much time, money and effort into their craft to be wronged in the biggest events of their careers, the events that define their professional lives. While the Federers and Djokovices of the world are frankly unconcerned with prize money at this stage of their tennis journeys–championships are the only real goal for the great ones, after all–the paychecks mean a lot to the competitors who occupy a lower place on the sport’s food chain.

Andreas Seppi isn’t close to being a top 10 player, but he definitely worked hard to become a top 35 player. That should mean something in a Grand Slam. If the ITF and the slams wanted to create a fairer climate for their players, they’d use the locked-in seeding and bracketing system, which would work like this:

In any field, the numbers of the seeds should add up to “the size of the field plus one.” In other words, in an eight-team tournament, the top seed plays the eighth seed, meaning that the total of the seeds (1 + 8) equals nine. Therefore, in a Grand Slam tennis tournament involving 128 singles players, the rankings or seeds of first-round opponents should add up to 129.

Seppi, as the No. 35 player in the world, would have accordingly played the No. 94 player in the world under this system. Given the way he competed against Federer in the final two sets of Monday night’s late match in Australia, it’s fair to say that the Italian would have almost certainly cruised against a 94th-ranked foe. In the second round–the round of 64–Seppi would have had to play, in all likelihood, the No. 30 player in the world, but the point is that a No. 35 ranking should generally mean a second-round paycheck in a 128-player field. Seppi lost nearly $18,000 (the difference, give or take a few thousand bucks, between a first-round check and a second-round check) because the long-existing draw system put him up against Roger Federer (?!) in round number one.

In contrast to the featured night match in the men’s field, Djokovic–who played in the scorching daytime sun–had the great fortune of drawing a much lesser Italian in the first round. Djokovic, who is defending his Australian Open title, faced Andrea Stoppini, a true tennis vagabond who had played only 9 ATP Tour matches heading into his showdown with the Serbian star. Stoppini toted a ranking of 220 to Melbourne, a far cry from Seppi’s 35. Given that Stoppini actually managed to grab a 5-3 lead in the third set of his match before losing the final four games, it’s reasonable to claim that Seppi would have taken one set from Djokovic based on current form. Conversely, if Federer had drawn Stoppini, the Swiss maestro wouldn’t have had to play a tiebreak set in order to ultimately prevail.

Two superstars played two very different Italians on day one Down Under. Andrea Stoppini–given his ranking–deserved to play a top 5 player. Andreas Seppi, however, deserved a much better fate.

It’s time to revise the seeding and bracketing system used at Grand Slam tournaments. Unless or until this happens, high-caliber players like Andreas Seppi will continue to be robbed at tennis gunpoint.