OFF SEASON TENNIS SCENARIO ‘Carnival’dollars in Tennis

In as much sporting challenges of ‘good Tennis’ is of interest to those who play the game there is another attraction in Tennis now. That is entertainment. Events catering to this segment have gathered quite a momentum in recent years. Such ‘events and galas’ with present, past, prominent and retired players are now organized show leagues for entertainment.

It somewhat resembles ‘revolution in Cricket’ that was staged to prop up its sagging image two decades ago. These events are modifying Tennis now.

The men’s ATP’s 2014 competition season was over in London with Switzerland’s Roger Federer registering a sensational win over his countryman Stanislas Wawrinka after being down four match points in the semi-finals. On the following day he had to concede the finals to Novak Djokovic without playing.

Federer personally appeared on the stadium court and stated strained back to be the reason for his withdrawal from the finals. With that Novak Djokovic became the world’s number one for the third consecutive year. Was that the end of the 2014 season in Tennis? No! Curtain went up again this time for the ‘2014- Tennis carnivals.’

ITF - The original body

Formerly there was only the International Tennis Federation (ITF) as the promoting and controlling international body for Tennis. All national associations, including Sri Lanka’s, is affiliated to this. In fact, our Tennis Association will be 100 years old next year.

In the global scene ITF is still there but not prominent any more. The famous team events Davis-Cup for men and the FED-CUP for women are ITF events and they hold the rights for these since inception. What ITF is better known today is for their under 18 ‘World Junior Rankings’ which they maintain annually. It is done through their junior events which appear in 5 grades, somewhat round the world. Sri Lanka mostly stages grade 5 events and some grade 3 and 4 too. USA has its own rankings. In the Women’s and men’s realm, the ITF is not the key player anymore.

ATP and WTA

When I was working in Germany, Wilhelm Bungert the 1967 Wimbledon runner up told me that he got a cheque for thirty odd Sterling pounds as prize money for it. That was still in the amateur era. Now the runner-up in Wimbledon gets over a million dollars. Recently Caroline Wozniacki came into the news for forgetting to collect her prize money of over one million dollars after her performance in the US-OPEN of 2014 in new York. The game makers of this transition in prize money figures are the Women’s Tennis Association [WTA] and the Association of Tennis Professionals [ATP] in men. They are independent of ITF and steer women’s and men’s Tennis today.

ATP came to being in 1973. At that time it was for women and as well as for men. Billy Jean King a well known ladies player changed that and made WTA an independent body some years later. For a long time men’s prize money was many folds more than that of women in all tournaments. As a result of WTA’s efforts today they are on equal terms when it comes to prize money.

New game makers

The gross income of any of the four major Grand Slams in Tennis could be a figure approaching a billion dollars each. Accurate information is difficult to get but it is certainly very big. The prize money alone for each of the Grand slam is around six and half million dollars. All these have brought ‘new game plans’ into the global Tennis scene.

In our neighboring India, Cricket took another form and now ‘Football’ has joined in – that is the IPL. This year, two Indian Tennis players have ventured into Tennis leagues. Indian Davis cup player and international doubles exponent Mahesh Bhupathi has been promoting an event called IPTL.

These events are been staged in Dubai, New Delhi, Singapore and Manila. Another former world top-10 Indian player Vijay Amitraj is promoting CTL in Indian cities. In the same manner events are popping up in many cities around the world. The most striking factor here is that there is no shortage of very good players to play in these events. Even the players from current top five of WTA and ATP are appearing in them. These have mega money for players.

Changes; War and Peace issue

ITF is the pioneer in Tennis administration. WTA and ATP were the second wave of Tennis administrating bodies. The three are not taking the new development too well. ITF is now facing Challenges from WTA and ATP on Fed-Cup and Davis-Cup format events. Now IPTL, ITL and others have come to being. Some comments have been made by all sides to reconcile. Looking at the rank and file of persons who spoke it seems that there is more to come. Money is the issue. Even the local Associations of countries will have to be ready to ‘face’ these developments very soon. As it is local associations seem to make their money with Tennis schools and not events and are strapped for cash for anything big. The story is still developing.

Unpredictability in Tennis

It is funny what money has done to sport. It is shutting old institutions and opening new ones. I cannot say all these would make survival of the game into the latter half of the 21st century, a certainty.

Already Tennis Club systems which facilitated millions of recreational players worldwide is vanishing. I know of more than ten clubs in Sri Lanka and another 20 in Europe at least which were shut down. Right now, ‘dollars’ for the player and ‘Carnival’ for the people is the winning combinations.

Some time ago in New-Delhi’s Indian National Championships, Indian maestro of that time and the only Asian Semi finalist in Wimbledon to this date, Ramanathan Krishnan was asked whether he would win his next match. I remember him saying ‘in Tennis nothing can be predicted’! – This is true even today and it seem to apply to every aspect of Tennis!

Decision making is important in rugby as players or referees on the field. Theoretically one may talk of the decision process but the speed at which decisions are made on the field is what matters.

That should lead to a reward for the decision in points. Recently I saw incidents where a quick decision process was practiced. A decision is required because there are alternatives. In a situation involving a player the negative result of a decisionis taken to mean it is a part of the game. Whereas if it is attributed to match officials more often recognized as the referee the insinuations are many leading to labeling as incompetent or that of favouring one against the other? Some are wild allegations.

Let us take an example of the decision taken in the last minute of the Havelock’s- Kandy match which resulted in the Park Club losing the game. The game was almost over and the only thing that waited was the final whistle to confirm that the game was won by a thin margin of 4 points. That is not what happened as Havelocks who were leading won a penalty in their territory and there is a decision to be made. Do you kick the ball to touch and the line out is yours or call for a scrum as this would eat up time. The other option is to work the ball and keep it with you. The player opts to work the ball and then chips into the hand of Kandy who keep the ball in play which allows their player to spot the gap and score and lead by a point and the final whistle goes off. The player took the option that he thought was best probably thinking if I kick the ball out or call for a scrum there still might be time left.

In another scenario the ball is kicked by the Army and passes over the plane of touch and is propelled in by an Army player. CH collect the ball and run to the goal line while the referee runs along probably thinking is there