Auckland tournament could help compete with new threat to WTA
ASB Classic tournament director Karl Budge is launching a bold bid to elevate the status of Auckland’s WTA tournament to Premier level on the WTA Tour in 2020.
That would make it comparable to the Brisbane International with potentially up to $US1m in prizemoney, four times the existing level.
Running alongside Brisbane and the Shenzhen tournament in China, which has a total purse of $US750,000, Auckland has always batted above its weight in attracting quality fields. This summer’s event has a direct entry cut-off of 89 in the rankings and features some of the sport’s biggest names like Caroline Wozniacki, Venus Williams, Victoria Azarenka and Eugenie Bouchard.
In comparison Brisbane includes seven of the top-10 and has its cutoff at 45 for direct acceptances. The tournament carries double the ranking points of Auckland and consistently attracts the bulk of the players ranked between 10 and 50.
That could change if Budge can
attract the necessary sponsorship and also secure a licence from the WTA to elevate the Auckland tournament. He believes the threat posed by a new ATP men’s event, the ATP Cup, which will launch next summer will encourage the WTA to up the ante for Auckland.
The $ US15 m ATP Cup, a partnership with Tennis Australia, feature five-player teams from 24 nations in an event lasting 10 days at the start of the season. It will be staged in three Australian cities (probably Brisbane, Sydney and Perth) and will dominate the media landscape and potentially reduce the WTA to second class status in the lead up to the Australian Open.
The Brisbane International which is currently a combined WTA/ATP event will become a women’s only event. Budge is lobbying the WTA to stage two high profile tournaments down under in the first week of the season down with Auckland elevated to the same status as Brisbane.
“I would be lying if I haven’t started asking those questions and started campaigning for that,” Budge said.
“The WTA needs to ask themselves if they want to be in a market that is going to have all their eyes on an exciting new men’s event or is there another opportunity for them to
come out and own a market and be the biggest show in town.”
Tour rules prevent a tournament of Auckland’s size and stature securing more than one top-10 ranked player. It’s something that has irked Budge over the years because he feels most of the top ranked players want to start the year in Auckland if they could. The ASB Classic is regularly voted the best international series tournament on tour and Budge says he would be able to chase at least half of the world’s top-10 players should the Classic be elevated in status. “My hardest job at the moment is letting players down. We know we have a large portion of the top 10 that want to start the year in Auckland. We probably could have had seven or eight discussions with top-10 players about starting the year in Auckland this year.
“We know we have a lot of support from players. You don’t get the players we get without having that player support and I think that’s certainly a string to our bow and I will certainly be banging my chest as loud as I can about how to increase the relevance of the ASB Classic.”
This summer’s tournament field unveiled yesterday features eight players ranked in the top 50 and includes three former world No 1s in Australian Open champion Caroline Wozniacki, Venus Williams and Victoria Azarenka. Defending champion Julia Goerges (ranked 14) is also back while former world No 5 Canadian Bouchard returns for the first time since 2013 when she was 18.
The ASB Classic starts on New Year’s Eve and runs through to January 6.