Monday, October 27, 2008
BUSINESS NEWS
Tennis Australia Elects Board of Directors at Annual General Meeting
Tennis Australia president Geoff Pollard was elected unopposed to the job he has held since 1989.
A new constitution adopted at last year’s Tennis Australia Annual General Meeting ensured a spill of all seven elected board positions (the other two are board appointees).
Geoff Pollard will head up the Tennis Australia Board consisting of eight directors which includes four new faces:
Harold Mitchell - Chairman of Mitchell and Partners; Executive Chairman of Mitchell Communication Group Ltd; the largest media agency in Australia; a former chairman of Museum Victoria; a former chairman of Opera Australia, and a Director of CARE Australia and the Asthma Foundation.
Stephen Healy - a partner of top 10 law firm Gadens Lawyers; Tennis New South Wales president, and a former ATP ranked tennis player.
Graeme Holloway - a tennis player since the age of eight who has represented Tasmania; a member of the Tennis Tasmania Board for five years; a pharmacist and former member and Treasurer of the Australian Pharmacy Examining Council, and a former local councilor. His father, Viv Holloway, was a Tennis Australia life member and long time tennis administrator.
Dr Janet Young - a member of two winning Fed Cup teams who reached the last 16 at Wimbledon and three grand slam doubles semifinals, pairing with Evonne Goolagong. A former head of Women’s Tennis at Tennis Australia; an ex tournament director of the WTA Canberra International; an international coach, and a sports scientist.
Coupled with the returning members, the Board boasts a strong blend of high-level business and tennis experience.
The returning directors are:
Ashley Cooper -one of the driving forces behind the reinvigoration of tennis in Queensland, the new Queensland State Tennis Centre and the Brisbane International. President of Tennis Queensland; a member of the Australian and International Tennis Hall of Fame; a four time Grand Slam winner; a former Davis Cup player, and a Tennis Australia Director since 2004.
Chris Freeman – Chairman Mirvac -United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and Queensland; CEO of Mirvac Development Queensland; adjunct Professor of the University of Queensland, and a Tennis Australia Director (Board appointed) since 2007.
David Stobart – President of Tennis Victoria; Chairman Victorian Government Manufacturing and Industry Consultative Council; Trustee of Melbourne Olympics Parks Trust; a Tennis Australia Director since 2005, and a Victorian Pennant player for more than 30 years.
Scott Tanner – Director of global consultant Bain and Company; Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, and a Tennis Australia Director (Board appointed) since 2007.
Under its new constitution Tennis Australia will have a fully independent board by 2012.
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Birmingham Will Cease to Exist After 2009 Event
Courtesy Edgbaston Priory
Another famous British tournament, much loved to icons of the women's tour such as Billie Jean King, Martina Navratilova and even Maria Sharapova, has bitten the dust. The 28 year-old pre-Wimbledon grass court event at Birmingham's Edgaston Priory will cease to exist after next summer.
Representatives of the Edgbaston Priory Club announced they have decided against issuing a tender to host the 2010 Aegon Classic (now named for the new £30 million LTA sponsors) because they would be unable to meet certain new requirements "in a manner that would be acceptable to its members."
It is understood these requirements are basically the construction of a 60-seat players restaurant but basically it means that, with the demise of the Nottingham Open men's event in the week before Wimbledon, there will not be a top flight tennis event staged in Britain anywhere other than London or Eastbourne on the south coast.
Robert Bray, the chief executive of Edgbaston Priory, sadly admitted: "There is not a situation in which we could classify ourselves as an international tournament venue," he said. "Sporting events are becoming larger and there was never a long term plan for the Priory to become the permanent host to such a tournament. We have always been a members club, albeit a large one (of some 3,000 members).
"We believe that Nottingham invested something like £4 million into its infrastructure and Eastbourne more like £6.5 million. There was nothing in the way of dialogue between ourselves and the LTA in terms of facility improvement here. Where does this event go to, I have no idea. As far as I know, the tender has gone to every local authority in the country. It is a great shame that the country's second city does not have an international tennis event, but we simply could not do what was required."
Edgbaston Priory will continue to be part of the LTA set up as one of the leading High Performance Centres and Bray continued: "We intend to play an integral part in the future of British tennis. We are a self-sufficient club, our membership is full, we are financially very viable but we never considered investing the money we make into becoming an international tournament venue. In fact, staging the event is a three-month process and if it does make us any money at all, that is negligible."
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AIG Likely to Stop Sponsoring USA Davis Cup Teams
The worsening international financial crunch may have claimed a sponsor of the US Davis Cup team, with the ailing AIG worldwide insurance giant reportedly ready to give up support which has lasted a decade.
American media report that sports funding is likely to become a victim of cost-cutting and restructuring. AIG took a government bailout this autumn worth around $85 billion with an additional line of credit available for the company to draw upon.
With that kind of squeeze on, wiping out a tennis sponsorship is just part of the plan. The firm has backed the team since 1999, with the company receiving shirt patches and TV ad time for their sponsorships dollars.
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Midtown Athletic Clubs Switch to Game-Based Instruction
Midtown Athletic Clubs - the Chicago-based company which owns and operates tennis and athletic clubs in Illinois, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, New York and Quebec – recently overhauled its national tennis curriculum to focus on a ‘Game-based approach’ to tennis instruction. Midtown tapped renowned tennis guru Wayne Elderton of Tennis Canada to spearhead the transition.
The Game-based approach focuses on creating game situations for players and accentuates tactics before technique. Rather than endlessly practicing forehands and backhands to achieve perfect technical form, the Game-based approach promotes strategy and encourages players to think about when to use each specific technique.
Midtown will have a 52 week lesson plan, broken into five sessions and macro cycles, for adults and juniors. This unique “situation” based methodology will allow Midtown members to reap the benefits of learning tactics in conjunction with technique in weekly progressions.
The ITF has been promoting the game-based instruction for the past three years. The strategy with this style is that beginners have fun with their first session and they create a desire to improve their game by taking lessons.
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Federer Decides to Play Paris
Roger Federer has decided to take a chance on playing in this week's Paris Masters.
Jean-Francois Caujolle, director of the Paris event, confirmed on Monday, that Federer would play.
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Bollettieri Celebrating 30 Years of Coaching
By Charles Bricker
He’s not retiring, Nick Bollettieri is celebrating 30 of coaching on November 7-8 beginning with a dinner at the Bollettieri IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida.
There will be golf and tennis clinics on Saturday morning and afternoon with the heavy duty celebrating Saturday night with a dinner at the Ritz Carlton hotel in nearby Sarasota.
"Don't ask me who's going to be there," Bollettieri said. "I don't know anything."
And he really doesn't. His daughter, Danielle, has put this party together, and his job is to ask no questions and just show up, beginning Friday night.
One by one, Nick Bollettieri ran down the list of his most famous pupils, and it's expected that scores of them will be at the party
At one time or another, he's trained or consulted with many of the best players in the game -- Andre Agassi, Jim Courier, Monica Seles, the Williams sisters, Maria Sharapova, Boris Becker, current women's No. 1 Jelena Jankovic and former top 10 Brian Gottfried, who was his first student.
Jim Courier? "When he finished all his hard work, he would work some more."
Maria Sharapova? "You couldn't see inside her. Outwardly, she'd smile at you. But inside, on the court, she was meaner than a snake."
Marcelo Rios? "The most talented student I ever worked with and possibly the biggest disappointment."
Mary Pierce: "People really didn't understand how hard she worked."
Boris Becker: "He once said to me, 'Mr. B, when I speak to you I'd better know what I'm talking about.' "
Seles: "Of all the players I've had there were only two that I knew would be great the moment I saw them in their first practice -- Andre and Monica."
There have been some down moments. Several divorces couldn't have been fun. In fact, Bollettieri once cracked that he probably never would retire because he's got a lot of alimony to pay.
There was also the letter he wrote to Agassi in 1993, criticizing Andre's lack of commitment to greatness and announcing he would no longer coach him. "I made one of my gravest misjudgments," Bollettieri later said.
The two men long ago patched up their differences. "I talked to him just last week on the phone," said Bollettieri. "We had a great talk."
If you wanted to, you could have spend hours asking Bollettieri to summarize the men and women he helped to tennis success.
"After 30 years, it's been a hell of a ride," said Bollettieri.
He began his coaching career 30 years ago at The Colony on Longboat Key, Fl., and four years later founded the Bollettieri Academy on 40 acres of largely undeveloped land in the middle of Bradenton, a city on the gulf coast of Florida about 60 miles south of Tampa.
"All I remember about that first day here was planting all the bushes and shrubs and palm trees," said Bollettieri.
"Did I ever think I'd get to this point, 30 years after I started coaching?" Bollettieri asked, rhetorically. "To be truthful, the last six months, since this party was planned, I do go back in my mind and think of the times we've had."
There will undoubtedly be a lot more reminiscing with the Bollettieri Clan and the people he's touched when they celebrate his coaching career in a couple weeks.
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Gasquet’s Unexpected Withdrawl from Paris Earns Official Reprimand
The rocky relationship between the French tennis authorities and the nation's leading player Richard Gasquet seem to have hit an all-time low after his controversial withdrawal from this week's BNP Paribas Masters Series event at Paris' Bercy Palais de Omnisports.
Tournament directors Jean-Francois Caujolle and Cedric Pioline are used to same of the sport's leading stars annually pulling out of the tournament as their minds are more focused on the upcoming Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai. But the French players are normally loyal to the country's second biggest event.
However Gasquet's commitment to the French cause has seemed dubious since he refused to face Andy Roddick in April's Davis Cup quarter-final in Winston Salem and earned a fierce rebuke from French Federation president Christian Bimes who said: "Our best players are not always determined to win, which is our problem. We have to make the players understand that they need to fight, to make sacrifices."
Consequently Gasquet, for a long time the highest ranked player from his country but now behind both Gilles Simon and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, also made a late withdrawal from the French Open and then refused to spearhead the French Olympic team, preferring instead to prepare for the US Open.
Last week he caused more controversy when He caused controversy in the aftermath of being beaten in the second round of the Lyon Grand Prix. The 15th ranked 22 year-old earned himself another stinging reprimand from French technical director Patrice Dominguez after commenting: "I will be happy once I would be eliminated at the Paris Masters Series".
Now Gasquet, who last year benefited from the BNP Paribas Masters Series event by securing the last qualification spot for Shanghai by virtue of beating Britain's Andy Murray and moving through to the semi-final where he lost to eventual champion David Nalbandian, appears to have earned his wish, citing a pain in his elbow as the reason for not playing.
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Titles, Not Points, is Now Federer’s Focus
Roger Federer is concentrating on the Shanghai Masters Cup and a resurgence next season against Rafael Nadal after losing No. 1 year-end status to the Spaniard.
But the Swiss is far from discouraged about the turn of events, emphasizing that that chasing ranking points is no longer a major factor in his career.
"That's not what my life's about anymore. It's about winning titles and that's what I'm really excited about," said the 13-time Grand Slam champion with a chance to pull level on the all-time best of Pete Sampras should he win the Australian Open again next January.
"Often you're on the tour and you go week by week and you're like, `Oh my god, I've got quarter-final points to defend from last year', but now when I come into a Grand Slam I don't care if I have 1000 points to defend or 50.
"I know the rankings are still an important factor but really it's about winning titles, being healthy and enjoying the tour."
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Leukemia Claims Federico Luzzi at 28
Federico Luzzi, the former Italian Davis Cup player whose career peaked when he reached no.92 in the world six years ago but was still playing competitively just a matter of days ago, died on Saturday of a rare form of leukemia.
The 28 year-old Luzzi passed away at a hospital in his hometown of Arezzo but the previous weekend he contested an Italian league match in Sardinia. He complained of feeling dizzy and was forced to leave the court. Still feeling unwell two days later he checked himself into hospital and soon lapsed into a coma.
A minute's silence in memory of the player who appeared four times for his country was held before the finals in Basel, St. Petersburg and Lyon as well as the opening round matches at the BNP Paribas Masters in Paris.
Soon to retire ATP executive chairman Etienne de Villiers had good reason to remember the name of Luzzi, the right hander who could boast victories over such names as 2004 French Open champion Gaston Gaudio, former world no.4 and Masters champion Alex Corretja, Mario Ancic, Fernando Lopez, Dmitry Tursunov, Juan Monaco and Jurgen Melzer, was one of a number of Italian players suspended for gambling on tennis earlier this year.
Luzzi was banned for 200 days and fined $50,000 by the ATP but de Villiers still said: "Losing a young man so tragically in the prime of his life, a son to a loving family and a great sportsman is a terrible blow.
"Federico was hugely respected by his fellow professionals and was one of the most popular players on the tour. Federico will be much missed by all who knew him and the thoughts and the prayers of everyone at the ATP are with his family on this very sad day for tennis."
Luzzi merited a place in the history books of Italian tennis. In 2001, he beat Ville Liukko of Finland 14-12 in the fifth set after 4 hours, 35 minutes -- the longest Davis Cup match ever played by an Italian.
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Hewitt Creates a Fundraising Auction for Australian Charity
Lleyton Hewitt has found a project to occupy some of his time as he recovers from hip surgery with an expected return to tennis in January prior to the Australian Open.
The 27-year-old and his wife Bec, pregnant with the couple's second child, have set up a month-long fundraising auction with proceeds going to the Cure Our Kids charity, which supports children in the state of New South Wales.
Among items going under the hammer are donations from former No. 1 Hewitt and his television ex-soap star wife. In addition, tennis pals Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer plus Ana Ivanovic and Andre Agassi have also kicked in memorabilia.
Hewitt, who last played at the Beijing Olympics before bowing to the inevitable and undergoing an operation on his hip, said that Nadal was particularly generous.
"He donated the racquet he used to win the 2008 Wimbledon final,"
said Hewitt. "Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi both donated tennis racquets, while Roger Federer gave us the shirt off his own back."
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After a Rest, Nadal is Ready to Finish the Season
After a week off, Rafael Nadal looks to be ready to resume his final leg of the season as top seed at the Paris Masters that started on Sunday. But Roger Federer may be less of a sure thing after competing this week as his sentimental tennis home of Basel.
Federer has dropped the hint that his Paris participation could be dicey and will certainly be based on a last-minute decision. After reaching the quarter-finals in Basel, Federer repeated that his schedule remains flexible.
The No. 2 returned to action last week in Madrid in something of a surprise after taking three weeks off and saying that his activities would be decided week-by-week.
After playing in Spain he could not miss his hometown date in Basel. But Paris remains an option with the Swiss set to fly to Shanghai to the Masters Cup early in the following week.
Nadal, meanwhile, has Paris, Shanghai and the Davis Cup final in Argentina on his plate. And that's the way he likes it:
"I'm more than calm, I'm happy I'm going to end the year as No. 1. That was my first goal and I’ve made it.
"Now I will try to end the year as best as I can. The first goal has been achieved and the second one is to try and play well in Paris and Shanghai."
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Blake Has Low-Key Approach to Playing in Shanghai
James Blake is taking his typical low-key attitude towards a possible repeat place in the season-ending Masters Cup next month.
It's been up and down for the American at the year-ender, playing the final against Roger Federer in 2006 but just failing to make the eight-man field a year later.
This month, Blake is again thick in the fight, standing provisional tenth with the final selection due to come down to performances next week at the Paris Bercy Masters.
Blake is unworried by it all, hoping to get to Shanghai but not obsessing, "We'll see what happens. If I get in great, if not, then there's a silver lining of one more week at home and a longer off-season.
"But I'm definitely not making any holiday plans or anything for the week of Shanghai (which begins November 8)."
***
We Hear—
--that Ola Malmquist will be named the USTA Director of Women’s Tennis High Performance to be based in Carson, California. He has been a national coach.
--that Britain’s LTA will announce today that next March's Davis Cup tie v the Ukraine will be played in Scotland (for only the 3rd time in history).
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THIS WEEK
MEN
Paris
WOMEN
Quebec City
***
NEXT WEEK
MEN
No events scheduled
WOMEN
Doha
***
Bob Larson’s Stock Report
Friday’s Stock Prices
Stock
Last
Change
Adidas
17.80
-.70
Amer Sports
4.15
0.00
Head
2.10
0.00
K-Swiss
12.10
-.85
Nike
47.79
-2.94
Bob Larson Tennis Stock Index $83.94
* The index is based on the total value of one share of each stock we report daily.
***
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