It’s a sad day for the tennis world. Gene Scott has died at the age of 68. Scott was a world-ranked tennis player and the founder, editor and publisher of Tennis Week magazine. Scott was a Davis Cup player who reached the number eleven ranking in the world. He was also a tournament director, wrote twenty tennis books and was known for his outspoken views, many of which appeared in his column, Vantage Point.
We could do with a few outspoken people in the tennis world. We have some problems. One of our problems was recently solved. If you walked around thePacific Life Open in Indian Wells last week, you might have seen Pete Sampras, Chris Evert or Billie Jean King wandering around. That’s because they’re part owners of the tournament.
The tournament was in dire financial straits with a large debt load and people from places like Dubai, China and Doha were lining up to buy the tournament and move it away. The tournament directors, Charlie Pasarell and Raymond Moore, made a deal with the city of Indian Wells to buy property adjacent to the tennis facility for $15 million so that they could refinance the stadium. Then they jettisoned their previous financial partner, the huge sports management company IMG, and took on the USTA, Tennis Magazine, Pete, Billie Jean, and Chrissy, among others, as partners.
Sunday morning, Pasarell and Moore sat down with the media for a one-hour conversation. There they discussed the biggest problem in tennis at the moment: scheduling. Only four of the top ten women turned up at Indian Wells. Kim Clijsters is legitimately injured, I don’t know what Mary Pierce is doing, and Amelie Mauresmo, the new number one, took a few weeks off.
It turns out that the WTA is contractually required to send 6 out of the top 10 women players to Indian Wells. Since they didn’t, they had to compensate the tournament. The WTA lags behind the ATP on this issue, 6 out of the top ten men turned up, and the ATP is more stringent about fining players when they skip important tournaments. We know that Lindsay Davenport had an MRI of her bulging disc to show the WTA when she pulled out of this week’s tournament in Miami, The Nasdaq-100, but it’s unlikely that Venus Williams sent them x-rays of the strained ligament in her elbow.
That makes more sense than a last minute Tennis Channel broadcast of a Federer-Nadal match from Dubai that never turned up on my cable schedule and, strangely enough, never turned up on The Tennis Channel’s website schedule either.
Speaking of the The Nasdaq-100, it’s a designated tournament, meaning that both WTA and ATP players are required to attend unless they are injured. Indian Wells doesn’t have that designation yet though Pasarell and Moore say that they’re next in line. That’s one way of dealing with the problem. Designate Indian Wells so that the top players in the world are available four weekends in a row on network television. That makes more sense than a last minute Tennis Channel broadcast of a Federer-Nadal match from Dubai that never turned up on my cable schedule and, strangely enough, never turned up on The Tennis Channel’s website schedule either.
While I’m happy that Pete, Billie Jean and Chrissy came to the rescue, it’s doesn’t look good when you have to be bailed out by former players. The USTA’s participation makes more sense. They run the US Open, which makes a lot of money, and they should be helping other tournaments. They also created the US Open Series, a set of tournaments running up to the US Open which has good television coverage. Pasarell said that the ATP and WTA are also asking other slams, such as the French Open, to help other tournaments leading up to it.
Tennis is a little like Indian Wells, it has problems but things are improving. The women’s side doesn’t look great, we can’t count on Venus and Serena to carry the day any more, but the men’s side looks like it’s on the verge of a legitimate rivalry between Federer and Nadal, especially when the surfaces slow down, and it has telegenic young stars such as Marcos Baghdatis and Nadal.
As far as state of the game on the court, let’s look at Hawkeye’s American debut in Miami yesterday. Hawkeye is the new electronic line calling system. In six matches on the stadum court – the system is expensive so it’s only available on the stadium court – players challenged fourteen line calls and won seven of them. I’m surprised, I thought it would be lower than 50%. True, it’s just over one incorrect call per match and it’s exceptionally difficult to tell if a 130 mph serve grazed the sideline, but that’s a high percentage and a good indication that Hawkeye’s arrival is long overdue.