Thursday, October 30, 2008
BUSINESS NEWS
Time is Running Short on Selling WTA Roadmap 2009 to the Players
Next week's Sony Ericsson WTA Championships in Doha won't just be a matter of deciding which player comes out on top after a helter-skelter year of women's tennis with the world no.1 ranking being passed around like a hot potato. It will be the setting for important meetings between tour hierarchy such as Larry Scott and Stacey Allaster and leading players after recently voiced reservations about the Roadmap plans that have been on the table for more than two years.
Verbal outbursts have been numerous in the past couple of weeks. Dinara Safina was the most forthright when she maintained nobody was too sure what they were allowed to play or not to play. Agnieszka Radwanska was also angry and the suggestion she would not be allowed to play smaller tournaments in her native Poland while the likes of Maria Sharapova and the Williams sisters both clearly want to remain a law unto themselves about where, and how often, they compete.
French Open champion Ana Ivanovic seemed to sum up the mood as she won her first title in four months at Linz last week when she said of the Roadmap: "Many players probably didn't look deep into it and kind of let it go, and all of a sudden you're there with the change, so it's a little bit hard."
Scott's Roadmap was designed to considerably reduce the amount of tournaments the top players had to play in a bid, apart from anything else, to reduce the risk of injuries that were becoming a negative force against the success of prestigious events. However the leading players were committed to playing ten of the 20 leading tournaments plus all four Grand Slam events and the Tier One stops at Indian Wells (starting March 11, 2009), Miami (March 25), Madrid (May 9) and Beijing (October 3).
Allaster, WTA president and effectively Scott's right-hand woman, jets to the Middle East prepared to confront such concerns and said: ""This is the most comprehensive set of reforms in the tour's history. The principles of the Roadmap are well understood. Now we're into the procedures -- the understanding of exactly how it will work."
She is acutely aware that the original concept of the Roadmap has been significantly diluted and a process of compromise is being strained. However, reluctant players should bear in mind that another new WTA Tour ruling about to be written into the rule-book expressly prohibits any verbal outbursts or comments that could damage the image of women's tennis.
Allaster continued: "It's new, and it's complicated even for those of us that are working and managing it on a day-to-day basis, so it doesn't surprise us that players don't know all the intricacies of it, but the fundamentals of the Roadmap they're aware of."
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Special Report on Tennis Facility Construction
Part II: Court builders anticipate slowdown
By Liza Horan
Sheldon Westervelt has been designing and building tennis facilities of all scales--from private courts to the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center--for 53 years. He's seen the economy dip, dive, climb, and spike. As of Tuesday, not one of his projects had been dropped, stopped or postponed.
That changed Wednesday morning. "We just got notice this morning to stop work on the project," Westervelt said yesterday afternoon about a "big" job on a private indoor club in the Northwest. "They told us, 'The project is stopped.'"
It's the first indication that the economy is catching up with the court building business, Westervelt said from his Boynton Beach, Fla., office for Global Sports & Tennis Design Group (GlobalTennisDesign.com).
"Is it all doom and gloom? No," he said. "But, in general, I don't see how our leisure time sport won't be affected in some way. The economy is obviously going to impact our industry as it is everyone else's."
That's the general sentiment of those in the court building business, including John Graham, Managing Director of DecoTurf (DecoTurf.com). "I would say it is too early to tell at this time. Certainly there are concerns within the industry," says Graham, "but we, as leaders, must continue to work together to create a positive tennis environment regardless of the economic conditions that exist."
Wall Street's woes have hit Main Street, and even High Street. The U.S. economy is having worldwide impact. Whether it will rock the heavily leveraged and super-aggressive tennis construction trend overseas has yet to be seen.
"I have heard of no slowdown whatsoever in our key markets," said to Don Galliers, who manages the international division of SportsMaster Sports Surfaces (SealMaster.net) and who cautions that a "domino effect" from the worldwide economy could hit the tennis business in another 30 to 60 days. "To date there's been no scaling back, but I do not anticipate that carrying forward."
Those "key markets" are China, India, Turkey, and the Persian Gulf, where the seeds of a tennis boom were planted (largely by Galliers) 15 years ago. Russia was on that list during Boris Yeltsin's term, Galliers said, but Vladimir Putin has had other ideas, so new facility construction has backed off. In top growth countries, the tennis infrastructure has been built by governments and national tennis centers that aim to make tennis part of mass culture and to produce pro stars. They have made serious financial commitments.
The tourism industry has followed suit. In South Vietnam, for example, Galliers said the coastline once dotted with military beachheads is now full of tennis courts at destination resorts.
Galliers isn't starry-eyed, though. He remembers when the Japanese economic bubble burst in 1990: "There was a 75 percent reduction the next year (in court construction business), and it has never recovered."
The difference today--whether in the United States or abroad--may be the sound infrastructure that governing bodies have built over the last decade or so.
Domestically, as tennis participation has been on an upward swing--surpassing 25 million in 2007 for the first time since the 1990s, according to the Tennis Industry Association--court construction has followed. In high-demand New York City, for example, new courts are being built at longtime clubs, like Roosevelt Island Racquet Club, and new bubble facilities are being erected along the waterfronts, according to Skip Hartman, the owner of several clubs.
New facilities are springing up, too. The $10 million luxe CityView Racquet Club (CityViewRacquet.com) opened earlier this year with seven courts in New York City, and the $14 million Sportime Randall's Island (SportimeTFM.com) is set to fully open its multipurpose 20-court facility in January. The long-awaited indoor facility at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center should have nine of its 12 courts open by Thanksgiving, according to Danny Zausner, NTC managing director. The 265,000 square-foot building includes classrooms, a food commissary, fitness center, pro shop, warehouse, museum, and a 5,000-square foot lobby with terrazzo flooring. Zausner calls the $65 million project a bargain: "You can't even build a shack in New York City for $300 a square foot."
The new NTC building, like the other projects opening now, were ahead of the economic curve, of course, yet the faced challenges as "the cost of construction and supplies catapulted over the last two to three years," said Zausner.
Still, from the sound of it, those builders may enjoy a few sighs of relief that their fund-seeking days are behind them. For new projects hoping to receive public funding or secure loans, the time might not be right.
"In Florida, funding of public facilities dried up last year," said Westervelt, who is looking forward to the Nov. 14 grand opening of the $1.5 million Seaview Tennis Center, a public facility in Palm Beach, Fla.
No matter--for the one phone call he received to halt work on Wednesday, Westervelt said he got several calls inquiring about new projects.
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Belgrade Getting Close to Having a Tour Event
Novak Djokovic says plans are advancing nicely for the transfer of a former Dutch event to his native Belgrade as Serbia strives to cement its new place in the game.
"The country is supporting us and we have all the things we need," said the world no. 3 at the Paris Masters. "It's now just the formality from the ATP to really take the tournament Amersfoort to Serbia."
Djokovic said he and his family who purchased the tournament after it failed to find a new sponsor, expect "to have it (the transfer) officially (approved) in Shanghai, in a couple week's time."
Djokovic added: "I'm happy for that; Serbia deserves a tournament after such great success in men's tennis. We have so many players who are top 50, top 100, singles and doubles.
"The country is very excited. In my opinion, it's now the No. 1 sport in the country. Not having one tournament was pretty strange - now we have one."
The deal marks the first time an active tour player has moved over to the business side of the game although Spain's Juan Carlos Ferrero had a hand in the early years of the Valencia event,
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Belgian Standout Signs With IMG
Competition between the various management groups is as fierce as ever to sign potential new superstars and IMG is patting themselves on the back after securing the signature of 19 year-old Belgian Yanina Wickmayer who has risen 350 places in the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour rankings during the past year.
The 6ft tall right-handed player from Lier reached her first Sony Ericsson WTA Tour final on English grass at the DFS Classic in Birmingham just before Wimbledon, beating far more experienced campaigners such as Casey Dellacqua, Michaela Krajicek and Bethanie Mattek along the way. In late September she then got to the quarter-finals in Seoul and then scored a victory over 41st ranked Iveta Benasova in Tokyo.
This week Wickmayer stands at no.67 on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour rankings after peaking in 62nd place at the beginning of the US Open.
"We're delighted that Yanina has selected IMG for exclusive representation," says Olivier van Lindonk, Vice-President IMG Tennis, who will, together with Caroline Lacy of IMG London, coordinate the management and marketing team, for Wickmayer globally.
Igor Takacs , Vice President of IMG Belgium, who will be a key part of Wickmayer's team, added: "We have a great history of successful female tennis players in Belgium and Yanina is our next young star to make a breakthrough on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour."
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Nadal is Reaching the End of His Endurance
Even prime physical specimen Rafael Nadal is reaching the limit of his endurance as a long season grinds on, with the world No. 1's uncle and coach Toni Nadal wondering if his charge will see through to the end.
"We are in a very bad state," Toni told Germany's DPA. "We are going to do the best we can, and to see whether we can get through it as well as possible, knowing that there are two tournaments left which, of course, do not come at a good time for Rafael."
Nadal, top seed at this week's Paris Masters, last event of the regular ATP season, faces a flight to China next Tuesday to prepare for the season-ending Masters Cup. He then goes to Argentina for the final leg of his marathon, the Davis Cup final November 21-23.
Even on off weeks, Nadal is never "off duty." Last week when he did not play an event he had to travel within Spain to receive an award, which threw his practice schedule off for a few days.
"We have trained badly for a week, because we missed three days," said Toni. "We get here (to Paris). The normal thing would be for us not to play very well."
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Editor’s Note:
We recently carried an article stating that the Canadian National Assembly honored Aleksandra Wozniak. Unfortunately, the photo accompanying the article was not Wozniak. Here is a photo of Wozniak showing her Medal of the National Assembly to Pierre Gingras, member of Parliament who recommended her for the honor.
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We Hear—
--that Luke Jensen had to miss a tennis exhibition Tuesday night in Grand Rapids, Michigan featuring Pete Sampras and Jim Courier due to a bad knee so his brother, Murphy filled in for him.,
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THIS WEEK
MEN
Paris
WOMEN
Quebec City
***
NEXT WEEK
MEN
No events scheduled
WOMEN
Doha
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Bob Larson’s Stock Report
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-.20
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52.48
+.06
Bob Larson Tennis Stock Index $89.22
* The index is based on the total value of one share of each stock we report daily.
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