It’s only a $442,000 event, which places it toward the lower end on the ATP prize money spectrum, but the Delray Beach International has become the most enterprising tournament of its size on the tour schedule, and the master promoter is Mark Baron, who has been running this show for 19 years.
On Thursday, he announced that Andy Roddick is coming back the late-February hardcourt tournament for the first time in seven years and that the winner next year is getting a 2011 Porsche 911 Carrera, which, depending on the doodads, is worth between $75,000 and $100,000.
Baron began lobbying for more top-end players at the U.S. Open, pinning up ads touting the Porsche, in addition to the prize money.
He says he was “overwhelmed” by the player response, which frankly surprises me. I mean, most of these guys can afford a couple of Porsches, so what’s the big deal playing for one?
Baron sounded as confounded as I when I spoke with him Friday. “No matter how much money they make, they travel so much the car would probably stay in the garage most of the year,” he explained. “But they have parents or wives and girl friends, so to win one for them is a different story.”
Landing Roddick and a Porsche giveaway isn’t the only promotional coups Baron has landed. This year, he negotiated inclusion of an ATP Champions tournament to be played concurrently with the ATP tour event.
John McEnroe, Mats Wilander and six other former champions began Friday and played the final under the lights on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the Delray Beach ATP tournament started Monday and finished Sunday. The idea of combining nostalgia with contemporary tennis was a brilliant stroke and it’s going to happen again in 2011.
Roddick will join Mardy Fish, John Isner and the Bryan brothers at the Delray Beach tournament. McEnroe, Pat Cash, Greg Rusedski and Wilander will be in the eight-man masters field.
* It’s been three weeks since I’ve written, and this happens every year. I just fall out for awhile after the U.S. Open, perhaps in some vain hope that the ATP will cut short the season after the final Grand Slam.
Of course, it won’t. And so the ATP tour continues on in this anticlimactic charade that goes on through the months of September, October and most of November before we bring this ridiculously long season to a close.
I understand tennis is a global sport and there is big money sponsors in Asia, Sweden, France, Austria and Spain in these late months, and I’m sure all this really matters if you live outside the U.S.
But if you live in the United States, do you really care about these fall and early winter tournaments? There’s virtually no TV for most of it. There are the final two ATP 1000s at Shanghai (Oct. 10) and Paris (Nov. 7), and Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer will be there. But doesn’t everything seem somewhat hollow after the U.S. Open?
The season finally will end after the Barclay’s World Tour finals, which begin Nov. 21. The tour’s top eight players will be there, soldiering on into the final days of November, giving them about one month off before the 2011 season begins.
Really, less than that. They can stow the rackets and take a couple weeks vacation, if they can find someplace warm enough in December. But by mid-December they need to get back to training because you can’t just go to Australia in January cold turkey and get ready for the Aussie Open.
Two weeks off after all the travel. Two weeks off to get rid of elbow, shoulder, knee, ankle or wrist problems. Yes, of course they get a week off here and there between tournaments in mid-season, but it’s not real time off, is it? They still have to train or get ready for a forthcoming tournament.
And you wonder why so many players are injured or cop out of important events, including Davis Cup, in mid-year in order to get some essential rest.
* Just throwing a few scattershots out there:
- Nadal right now leads No. 2 Novak Djokovic by 4,880 ranking points, the second widest lead ever. Widest? Nadal at 15,360 on May 11, 2009, to No. 2 Federer’s 10,170 – a lead of 5,190 points. . .
- There are four Spaniards in the top 20 and, just like the Russians on the women’s side, ever more are on the way. Name to watch: Pablo Andujar, up 28 spots this week to No. 77 after qualifying and reaching the final in Bucharest, where he lost to Juan Ignacio Chela.. . .
- What’s going on with 18 year old Traci Capra, who won a couple rounds at the U.S. Open and gave U.S. tennis fans a new name to follow? She hasn’t played since, but she’ll be back on court at a $50,000 Challenger in Kansas City next week, followed by a $50,000 in Troy, Ala., and a $25,000 in South Carolina. Credit two coaches for bringing her along – John Evert and Evert Tennis Academy coach Federico Ricci, who will be traveling with her. . .
- John’s sister, Chrissie, was known as the Ice Queen in her playing days. Now you can call her the Godmother after she assumed the title upon the baptism of John’s first child. . .
- Taylor Dent is only 10-17 and ranked No. 92 in his first full season back following multiple surgeries on his back, and he can’t be too happy about that. But in his more pensive moments, he must be thankful just to be back on court. . .
- What has the country of Kazakhstan got to show for all the money it has spent paying players – mostly Russian – to fly their flag on tour? Not much. Andrey Golubev is at No. 41, Mikhail Kukushkin at 83 and Evgeny Korolev at 91. On the women’s side, just one rent-a-Russian – Yaroslava Shvedova at No. 39. Sesil Karatantcheva, who is really Bulgarian, is at No. 139. All these players list Kazakhstan as their country – an insult to the place where they were born.