ATP Cup in Auckland on radar screen
ASB Classic tournament director Karl Budge has had preliminary discussions about Auckland being one of the host cities for the ATP Cup, the WTA Cup if it gets off the ground, and also being the new home for the Hopman Cup.
The ATP Cup took place in Australia last week and while it wasn’t an out and out success, it did well enough and lured enough big name players to ensure it has a future.
That’s bad news for the men’s Classic as Daniil Medvedev, who was meant to be the star player at this week’s tournament, pulled out because of the heavy workload he’s had at the ATP Cup.
With fears around how much the ATP Cup would impact the Classic, as a concession the ATP allowed Budge to have two extra wildcards, to pick up players who’d been knocked out early in the new event and wanted more tennis before the Australian Open.
However, Budge wasn’t able to find any players willing to take one of those wildcards.
The fears around how much damage the ATP Cup would have
New Zealand’s top doubles player Michael Venus has been given a wildcard for the men’s ASB Classic.
The world No 10 doubles player hasn’t played a singles match since representing New Zealand in the Davis Cup in 2018 against South Korea.
The last time he won a singles match was in 2017, also against Korea, when he defeated Hong Seong-chan.
But the last time Venus won a match at ATP level was coincidentally against another Korean, Lee Duckhee in Shenzhen, in 2015.
Venus will play doubles at the Classic with John Peers from Australia, with the duo being the top seeds.
The 32-year-old Venus said he’d prepared well and felt he was ready for the extra physical demands of playing singles.
‘‘I always love playing singles, I did a lot of training in the offseason and the body feels good,’’ Venus said.
‘‘Unfortunately John [Peers, his new doubles partner] hasn’t been here to do lots of doubles training together, so I’ve been practising out there with some of the singles guys and doing drills with my coach.
‘‘Karl [Budge, tournament director] came to me and suggested it,’’ Venus added, about how the singles wildcard came about.
‘‘I went away and spoke to my coach about it and we thought it could be a good opportunity to start the year, get some point-play out there before getting on the doubles court and also it’s a good on the Classic have become a reality and in what could be a blow to the women’s Classic is news that the WTA wants to have a women’s Cup run alongside the ATP Cup.
Sam Stosur and Novak Djokovic both spoke out last week in favour of a WTA Cup and Tennis Australia chief executive Craig Tiley confirmed discussions were under way.
‘‘I’ve had a chat with Craig Tiley, I’ve had a chat with the WTA, everyone is very supporting of what Auckland does for the calendar,’’ Budge told Stuff.
‘‘I think the women are voting with their feet at the moment with where they want to be and we are firmly part of the plans for the start of the year.’’
It’s unlikely the WTA Cup would get off the ground until 2022 at the earliest and Budge said there were a lot of question marks around it.
‘‘We don’t know what it will look like. Will it be a multi-teams event? Will it even get up?’’ Budge said.
‘‘There is a lot of talk around what people want to do and we’ve got to wait and see what’s happening. I think it’s unlikely for next year, but I certainly wouldn’t draw a line through it in the future.
‘‘We’ve got to look at what our role is at the start of the season, leading into Melbourne.’’
It may be a case that instead of trying to fight against the ATP and WTA Cups and the might of Tennis Australia, the better option would be to embrace it and look for Auckland to be a host city, along with Perth, Brisbane and Sydney.
‘‘I think that’s a conversation we’d have to have,’’ Budge said.
‘‘I’d be lying to you if I said I haven’t had some of those conversations already.
‘‘But this is incredibly new for everyone, it’s conceptual. Is there the depth and team structure? How does that all look? There are the financial arrangements with the cities.
‘‘For all of that stuff there’s a lot of water to flow under the bridge before anything remotely comes up to a board for a vote.
‘‘It’s very early days and if I was in their shoes [WTA], I’d be coming out and saying I’d want to do it as well.
‘‘But saying it and doing it are two different things.’’
The Hopman Cup had become a hugely successful eight-nation event in Perth during the first week of the season, where a male and female player would team up and play singles as well as mixed doubles for their countries.
The ITF-endorsed event had been put on the shelf because of the ATP Cup, much to the frustration of tennis fans in Perth.
But the ITF is looking for a new home for the Hopman Cup and Budge revealed he had had talks about that also.
‘‘We’ve been part of some initial conversations. Obviously, I’m very close to Craig, I’m very close to the WTA, so there’s a lot of water to flow under the bridge yet, before we start making too many plans.’’