Transition in global Tennis control
The 1st of the 4 Grand Slams, the Australian Open, commenced on Sunday, January 14, in Melbourne. Australia. This year, control of Tennis will come under some grey clouds. The International Tennis Federation [ITF] controlled the game from 1915. In the last two decades, Professional bodies have wrested most of it away. The Davis Cup is still ITF property. The ATP is starting a World-Cup in 2020 to replace the Davis Cup. What more, most of the ITF and most of the other low-end events will not offer World-ranking points.
In the late ’60′s ‘Open’ Tennis came to being merged or better said, wiping amateurism in Tennis out of existence. Since then ITF control has been declining.
The professional bodies ATP and WTA came into being in the Open era. Their main strength, even today, is the active player memberships without which there will be no big events. In recent decades, the ATP and the WTA proceeded to have their own calendar of events globally, and worked alongside the ITF, and they did not have ‘major’ differences. This has changed. What we see now is the domination of professional bodies.
DAVIS CUP the issue
The Davis Cup iss the flagship of Tennis, which is an inter nation team annual championship from 1900. It is causing some issues. It is the last bastion of control the ITF has in the Open Tennis era. The Davis Cup had to change its playing format. The machinery of running the Davis Cup has expanded from two-nation championships in 1900 to an over 130 nation event now. The old format is very costly and the ITF cannot sustain the cost by itself.
The Davis Cup had one of the longest and most effective sports sponsorship with NEC, the Japanese electrical company, for over 25 years. Many would recall seeing NEC boards in every Davis Cup tie. An aristocratic ex-Swedish player orchestrated the event and created a sports sponsorship model worthy of praise.
Unfortunately, the Davis Cup does not substantiate players’ needs and has been a problem to professionals. The two missing aspects of the current Davis Cup is money for players and Ranking points. In the money aspect, National Associations (NA) have not been effective. For a good many years, NAs placed a national compulsion to represent the country and even took disciplinary action on defaulting players. It did not go down well.
The professional bodies only accepted and tolerated Davis Cup for its history. The tolerance has been breached, with the thinking, ‘enough is enough’. The ATP will be holding the first inter nation team event ‘The World Cup’ in 2020 in Sydney. Meanwhile, the ITF has signed another contract with a multinational. Madrid, Spain, as its single venue.
For Tennis, in the end, it would be a disadvantage to see the ITF go. ATP and WTA do not have the representation as promotional units of Tennis in all the Tennis nations, unlike the ITF. It be bad to see the ITF shutting down altogether.
Conflict history
The foundation for this split began in 1968, when Wimbledon was still an amateur, closed event. Meaning, professional players were not eligible to play, and there was no prize money. This diminished talent infusion into Tennis. In the ’60s, many sports became ‘Open’ and most of the good sporting talents went to other sports.
The credit for the rapid development of the game in recent times should go to ATP and WTA. After the appearance of these two, with their player backup system, Tennis evolved rapidly. World Ranking and the professional calendar are ATP, WTA creations.
The ITF and their agency the NA controlled the game bureaucratically. Its officialdom, prestige of position and functionaries. The ATP’s approach is very ‘profession’ and need based. In the pre-Open era, players in their retirement became beggars. Professional bodies changed this and it is one of their prime goals.
The ATP’s ideals encouraged and reopened the road for sports talent to take up Tennis again from the 70’s onwards. Roger Federer was a footballer, so was Caroline Wozniacki. The world would have never seen Federer, Pete Sampras, Lendl, Steffi Graf, Williams and a score of other women and men, if not for ATP and WTA. There is room to say this. At this present point in history, the ATP-WTA contribution outweighs that of the ITF’s.
Final trigger
The trigger for this move by the ATP to challenge the Davis Cup, came from the unilateral decision of the ITF to change the Davis Cup format. Though not official, the reason behind the Davis Cup format change was not ideology, but money. Financially, the Davis Cup in the old format is a very big commitment. When the last contract ended, from what I know, there were no bidders to sponsor the Davis Cup in the old format. Advertisers and sponsors have so many Tennis and sports events for their need. What made Davis Cup unattractive is the refusal of the best players to be a part of the national team. It made Davis Cup become an event sans stars, and sponsors found it unattractive. As Tennis evolves, there will be casualties.
Meanwhile, Melbourne 2019 Grand Slam will go on with all the pomp and pageantry until the end of next week. These events not only cater to the visiting spectators, but also to the need of massive electronic media users. In fact, it will be much bigger than the Melbourne audience.
George Paldano, Former int. player; Accredited Coach of German Federation; National coach Sri Lanka & Brunei, Davis-Cup, Federation Cup captain/coach– contact 94 77 544 8880 geodano2015@gmail.com -