THE tennisreporters.net NEWSLETTER: MONDAY, NOVEMBER 10, NO. 56

Clijsters ends the year in style
WTA Championships may move out of LA in 2005 – or not

By Matthew Cronin
tennisreporters.net

FROM THE WTA CHAMPIONSHIPS IN LA – Have US fans had enough of Kim Clijsters, she of nine titles and four out of the last California crowns?

Not by the reception she received after embarrassing Amelie Mauresmo 6-2, 6-0 on in the Bank of America WTA Championships final on Monday.

Clijsters talked and talked to the fans after receiving a very cool record $1,030,000 for victory. She brought WTA stalwart Lee Jackson on court to have fans sing her a happy birthday on her 79th birthday, a beautiful gesture from a giving person. Jackson will retire at year's end.

Clijsters laughed, joked and had most of the Staples Center smiling. She'll go shopping in Beverly Hills on Tuesday to buy some gifts for friends and then on Wednesday, she'll head to Australia to spend the off-season with Lleyton Hewitt.

Her performance was vintage Kimmy: lethal consistent play from inside the baseline, smart serving, creative returning and never-ending momentum. The tired Mauresmo had nothing to offer, her balls landed short, or in the net, or wide, or long. Clijsters is in far better shape and has no trouble with her high-bouncing topspin.

"I saw the ball like a football," Clijsters said. "That's a nice feeling knowing you can do whatever you want with the ball, when you go down the line or even when you aren't in the right position."

Mauresmo, who had upset Justine Henin-Hardenne in a long three-setter Sunday night, was clearly shaken.

"She was covering the court very well and I couldn't really take advantage of any opportunities. She wasn't giving me any free points to come in on. You have to give her credit, she handled it better than I did."

So let's state the obvious: Clijsters no longer holds the No. 1 ranking, which Henin-Hardenne now holds because she reached the semifinals of this tournament. Henin-Hardenne beat Clijsters in both the Roland Garros and US Opens finals. Henin-Hardenne is a deserving No. 1 and Clijsters as No. 2. But give Kim this: She reached the final and was waiting for Justine, who never showed up.

"In a way, yes, Justine definitely deserved to be [in the final] as well," Clijsters said. "We've been the two strongest players from the moment that Venus and Serena didn't play anymore. But Amelie beat her."

But she didn't beat Clijsters.

WTA Championships may move out of LA in 2005 – or not
During the 30th Anniversary Celebration of the WTA Tour Sunday, Billie Jean King spoke intelligently about how it takes five years to build up an event and that she liked how committed the three partners in the Bank of America WTA Championships appeared to be: the WTA, Octagon and the Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG).

Long Beach native King also noted that how tough it is to sell a new event to fans in LA, which has hundreds of events and recreational opportunities available on a daily basis. Florida's Chris Evert said that she's never considered LA to be a good tennis market, but Rolling Hills' Tracy Austin didn't agree.
While there is a diversity of opinion on the subject, almost no one expected new WTA CEO Larry Scott to say during his state of the tour address on Monday that the tournament will leave leave Los Angeles after it completes the third year of its contract in 2004, possibly for China.

What was even more unexpected was that four hours later, one of his spokesmen would came back to say that Scott is now keeping his options open. Most folks around the press center believed he did this because AEG – which poured $1 million into promoting the event and was reasonably pleased by the increase in attendance – wasn't too thrilled.

"The plan is to move it in 2005 and I believe that will happen," said former ATP executive Scott, who took over the reigns of the women's tour six months ago. "There was a delegation from China here this week and there are other cities in the US that are interested in the event. It's going to take some months to develop our plans, but I think our original strategy is to move this event from time to time. It's the crown jewel of the tour circuit. It's a promotional opportunity to move it around the world."

OTHER CITIES SEEM INTERESTED
Madison Square Garden is apparently interested along with some European cities, including Antwerp. The WTA Championships were held in Munich in 2001, but did terribly.

In its second year at the Staples Center, the Championships drew 44,889 fans overall, up 3,629 fans over 2002, despite the fact that local players Serena and Venus Williams and Lindsay Davenport were out with injuries and that they held four fewer sessions.

Here's Scott's take on what King said: "I wouldn't dispute what Billie Jean said but there are other objectives that have to be balanced. We've got different constituents in different parts of the world that need to be served. Being in LA is not the ideal time zone for our European television broadcast partners. We have been thrilled to be in Southern California for a few years but we have to balance that. We have a global sport and we have to balance that with some other needs."

Octagon owns 50 percent of the tournament while the WTA owns another 50 percent. Octagon's John Arrix said that even if attendance jumped by 50 percent, the tournament is gone.

"It's important to build up the importance of the tournament globally, which we are doing, but leaving after three years is the plan," Arrix said.

Tim Leiweke, head of Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) which owns the STAPLES Center where the tournament is played, said that they signed a seven-year agreement with the tour and was reportedly furious that Scott decided to shut the door when the tournament still has a year left. AEG not only put in excess of $1 million into promoting the tournament this year, but knows that it will be very tough to sell the event next year when folks know that it is gone the next.

The way to establish successful tournament is to build a loyal base of fans who get used to heading to the Staples Center the first week of November for standout tennis. Tennis is not a concert tour, nor a circus. It's about getting tennis fans comfortable coming to a facility and establishing fond memories of their time there so they come back again.

"They've got to fix tennis. Because eventually what they going to do is drive people like us out," said Leiweke, who did acknowledge that the WTA has an option to leave after three years. "This is not the way to run a business."

AEG is no small fry operation. It owns the STAPLES Center, five MSL soccer teams and a state-of-the-art sports facility in nearby Carson, where the tour has another stop. It could be a great, long-term partner for the tour.

But maybe not for long.

Scott's comments came after he praised the tournament's success this year and his partners. His state of the tour speech (which we'll go into later in the week) was very insightful and he appears to have the tour going in the right direction.

CALIFORNIA HAS EARNED THE CHAMPIONSHIPS
But the tour shouldn't move the Championships after next year unless it flops in LA. It should stay for five years, then reassess and then possibly move to another location – for another five years.

If Venus, Serena and Lindsay had played this year, at least another 10,000 fans would have showed up. Any time a WTA tournament can average 9,000 fans per session, everyone should be pleased.
This is not the NFL.

Showcasing the tour in places like China, or North Africa or Latin America is a fantastic idea, but that could be done by creating a couple other roaming tournaments of eight stars that switch locales every year.

The Championships should be played in cities with large bases of tennis fans, where the people who put money into supporting the sport year after year are rewarded with being able to see the tour's best players.

California is one of those locations, which is why outside of Championships, five other tournaments do just fine here. There are cities in Europe, Australia and Japan which are also fine bases for the Championships.

But plunking the Championships down in countries where tennis isn't very popular is very risky and inappropriate. Let those countries consistently support smaller and medium-sized tournaments first before giving them the "crown jewel," which should be reserved for the royal fan bases.