Tennis needs spotlight to shine on new events
Tennis New Zealand is looking how to fill the void and keep the sport’s profile up this summer.
With it being announced this month the ASB Classic won’t be happening in January, tennis will miss out on its usual time in the spotlight.
At this stage, the Australian Open in Melbourne still looks like going ahead, but without the Classic, there won’t be any world-class tennis for New Zealanders to watch live early next year.
Tennis NZ owns the women’s Classic, with Tennis Auckland running it on its behalf, and TNZ chief executive Julie Paterson said it’ll take a financial hit from there being no Classic.
‘‘ There will be a financial implication for Tennis NZ, but putting that to one side, the biggest disappointment is that the ASB Classic tournaments are the shop fronts for tennis,’’ Paterson said.
‘‘We have that massive time of visibility of tennis through January and people in New Zealand straight away connect summer to tennis, because we have a whole month where it’s front and centre.
‘‘So that’s a real challenge for us, and we’re thinking about how we can keep the profile of tennis high through that period of time.
‘‘ Potentially, what other tournaments we might be able to put on, if not at that time, then a little bit later.
‘‘ But clearly nothing we do will have the same visibility that the ASB tournaments would have had. ‘‘It’s disappointing, but it’s understandable and I know that the Tennis Auckland team will be very quickly turning their attention to 2022, and making sure that event will be bigger and better.’’
Tennis NZ this year put on World Tennis Tour tournaments in Te Anau and Hamilton. These were lower level ITF events, which gave Kiwi players a chance to pick up valuable ranking points, while remaining in the country.
But these events are both in doubt for 2021, although Te Anau could take place as an invitational event.
While tennis is taking a hit at the top level, at the grassroots, TNZ has just completed an outstanding ‘Love Tennis’ Weekend, where people were encouraged to give the sport a go at their local club.
Over 200 clubs took part in the weekend, on October 10-11. There were 25,000 visitors over the two afternoons and around 2000 new club members signed up, Havelock North the top club with 115 new members.