Bob Stockton is subbing for Justin Cohen this week for THIS WEEK IN TENNIS BUSINESS
* U.S. Davis Cup Captain, USTA General Manager of Player Development and ESPN Commentator Patrick McEnroe will have his book called “Hardcourt Confidential: Tales from Twenty Years in the Pro Tennis Trenches” come out on June 8, 2010. You can pre-order it here at a 34 percent discount. http://www.amazon.com/Hardcourt-Confidential-Twenty-Tennis-Trenches/dp/1401323812/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264338772&sr=1-1 Another television commentator with new a book is Corina Morariu of The Tennis Channel. Her book, due out Feb. 25, 2010, is called “Living Through the Racket” about her battle over Leukemia. It can be pre-purchased at a 32 percent discount here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1401926495?tag=tennisgrancom-20&camp=14573&creative=327641&linkCode=as1&creativeASIN=1401926495&adid=1YW8R5WV74G9GSSSKQNZ&
* Whoever at the USTA came up with the idea of the US Open National Playoff should stand up take a deep bow. Announced Wednesday, the US Open National Playoffs is more or less a “regional qualifying” event for the US Open tennis championships, similar to what the U.S. Golf Association conducts for its US Open. Players will compete in regional qualifying events in 16 of the 17 USTA sections (all except Caribbean Section) with players age 14 and older have a chance at earning a spot into the US Open Qualifying Tournament. The US Open National Playoffs begins with 16 sectional qualifying tournaments held throughout the country from April through June. The men’s and women’s champions from each of the sectional qualifying tournaments advance to the US Open National Playoffs – Men’s and Women’s Championships, which will be held in conjunction with Olympus US Open Series tournaments this summer.
“The US Open National Playoffs makes the US Open ‘open,’ where one woman and one man will earn a wild card into the US Open Qualifying Tournament and a chance to advance to the main draw,” said Lucy Garvin, Chairman of the Board and President, USTA. “The fact that the US Open National Playoffs are supported by qualifying tournaments run by our sections makes this event even more unique, extending the reach of the US Open across the country.”
The entry fee for each of the sectional qualifying tournaments is $125. All players competing must have a current USTA membership valid through August 30, 2010. Competitors can enter any of the 16 sectional qualifying tournaments, but they can only enter and compete in one sectional qualifying tournament. Each sectional qualifying tournament is limited to 256 players, and players will not be seeded by any means. Participants can be of any playing level, from aspiring novice to seasoned professional, giving everyone an equal opportunity to advance.
“While professionals are eligible to play, we expect the draws to be filled with top junior players, collegians, teaching professionals and even recreational players who will now have a chance to play themselves into the US Open for the first time,” said Jim Curley, Chief Professional Tournaments Officer & US Open Tournament Director.
Entry information and a schedule of US Open National Playoffs Sectional Qualifying Tournaments are available online at www.usopen.org. Registration begins February 1.
The U.S. Open golf qualifying is open to any player, pro or amateur, with a handicap index of 1.4 or lower. Local golf qualifers are held in 110 locations across the United States and feature more than 7,000 players. If the US Open National Playoffs receives close to full 256 men’s and women’s draws at each site, it would be comparable to the U.S. Open golf qualifying.
* SAP will mark its sixth year as the title sponsor of the ATP event in San Jose, Calif. February 8-14, 2010. Andy Roddick leads the field of 2010 and will be seeking a fourth title at the SAP Open. Others in the field include Lleyton Hewitt, Mardy Fish, Sam Querrey, Tommy Haas, and the Bryan brothers, Bob and Mike. Played at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, ticket packages and group tickets are available by calling (408) ACE-2121. Additional information about the SAP Open can be found on the tournament website at www.sapopentennis.com.
“It is my pleasure to welcome back this elite group of players to the SAP Open,” said Tournament Director Bill Rapp. “With this group of world-class players already confirmed, we look forward to another exciting tournament in 2010.”
The tournament will kick off when two-time SAP Open singles champion and 14-time major winner Pete Sampras returns to compete in a charity singles exhibition match against Fernando Verdasco. The Sampras/Verdasco exhibition will be played Monday, February 8 at 7 p.m.
* Tickets for the BNP Paribas Showdown for the Billie Jean King Cup at Madison Square Garden Monday, March 1 are available at www.TheGarden.com and via Ticketmaster. The second-annual event will feature Venus and Serena Williams, Kim Clijsters and Svetlana Kuznetsova.
* The 2010 Australian Open appears to be on track for a new attendance record. First-week attendance was 443,862 and the event set an attendance record of 604,735 in 2008, 400,522 came in week one. The event set a new all-time single-day attendance record at a Grand Slam with 66,154 visitors last Wednesday.
* The tennis division of Lagardere Unlimited, headed by former SFX and BEST representative Ken Meyerson, has signed representation contracts with Justine Henin and Nadia Petrova. Lagardere also represents Andy Roddick, Fernando Gonzalez, Richard Gasquet and Gael Monfils among others.
* According to Sports Business Daily, TENNIS Magazine saw a 22.5 percent drop in advertising revenue from 2008 to 2009. It also saw 24.3 percent drop over the same period in ad pages. Sports magazines in general saw a rough ’09 on the advertising revenue front, as most all major publications saw double-digit dips from ’08. ESPN The Magazine was the only publication with a single-digit drop, off 8%.
* Advertisers on the Tennis Channel’s Australian Open coverage include Garnier, Latisse, MGD 64 (Miller Genuine Draft), ING, TennisExpress.com, Longines, Wilson, TheLadders.com and Midwest Sports. Advertisers on ESPN2’s Australian Open coverage include Franklin Templeton (presenting sponsor), Plavix, Lexus, RadioShack and United States Postal Service.
* According to the International Tennis Hall of Fame, former ATP pro Ronald Agenor is directing his efforts towards the rebuilding program in his native Haiti.
“I have lost a lot of friends and I know that distant relatives have died,” Agenor, a former World No. 22, who represented Haiti during a 19-year pro-career, told ATPWorldTour.com. “My brother survived, thank God, and he is safe. One of my aims is to play a number of singles and doubles exhibitions with current pros at ATP World Tour tournaments to raise funds for the rescue efforts.”
Agenor is attempting to organize tennis exhibitions in February. For details or to organize and event, please email events@ronaldagenor.com. The first exhibition will take place on February 27 in Pointe a Pitre.
* According to Neil Harman of the Times of London, the Davis Cup Challenge Round may be returning to the Davis Cup. As part of part of a plan to revamp the Davis Cup being put together by former U.S. Davis Cupper and former Sony Ericsson founder Butch Buchholz, and Mike Davies, a former Great Britain Davis Cup player and previously a director of the ATP. According to Harman, the plan would be to have a championship played ever other year in one location — along proposed World Cup lines — and that the Challenge Round would be resumed – ie the defending Davis Cup champion would receive a bye into the final of the next year’s competition. Each Davis Cup champion would defend their title against teams that emerge from a qualifying competition, roughly the same format the competition had from its early days of inception in the early 1900s until 1972 when the “World Group” format was instituted.
Said Buchholz to Harman, “The way things are at the moment, the Davis Cup will soon resemble a junior Davis Cup and that’s not good for tennis. I have been stirring the pot for a while, but I don’t want to lose the Davis Cup. It is a brand that is so recognizable. But what we can do is to make it better. Something will happen, I am absolutely certain of that. We will be making a proposal to the ITF [the owner of the Davis Cup] before the end of the year and what we need to make sure is that we have all our ducks in a row: the money is in place, the TV companies are in place and what we offer is in the best interests of the sport. Let us make it big. If, in its current form, the Davis Cup does not work for the players, does not work for TV, does not work for sponsors and does not work for fans, then we have to make it something to be proud of. I absolutely feel the stars are aligned for this. We can make it work as soon as tennis wants it to work. Perhaps 2011 is too soon — we would not want to impinge on the Olympic Games in London in 2012 — so I would like to think that by 2013 we would have made the necessary changes and be able to carry them through.”