United Cup – new Hopman model
Competition propels sporting flair, interest, artistic creativity. World Cup in football immortalised Brazilian Pele. He made football look so good and drove millions to the football fields. His entertaining bicycle pedal kick filled the stadiums. Artistic skills are the spectator appeal base. In today’s context, tennis has fair share of players doing exactly what Brazilian Pele did for football.
ATP and WTA organises a calendar for tennis globally in 31 countries. Starting in February, they compose the calendar for next year. A complex and multifaceted endeavour taking players to 31 countries and conducting well over 300 events. These are professional CEO and Co. affairs now. Noticing its complexity it cannot be otherwise.
Most of the controlling bodies of global sports have a permanent staff to nurse and promote their events. Their staff size, budgets and global distribution will surprise us all. To infuse better challenge and accelerate maturity of local players, premier league system has taken strong footing in many countries. These are taking away spectatorship from TV screen to the stadium seats.
Competition idea provides livelihood to millions globally and mega contributor to sports economy, most are unseen. It touches the lives of players, coaches, event organisers big and small. Employment for travel, hotel industry, tennis court makers, maintenance staff, qualified officiating, media reporters, media presentation staff and professional court umpires and so on.
I will not be wrong in saying these segments are the most dominating propellant of global tennis than the Athenian values of sports. It caters towards the desire of players too in gaining sponsorship for the ‘after life’ of players when they retire. In short, though the list shows itself to be long, in reality it consist of essentials only.
Such is tennis of today, which started on the English lawns to replace Crochet 150 years ago. Today well over 200 countries play tennis and is an Olympic sport. From the trends one sees, it will grow further.
The United Cup
Harry Homan of Australia, a player and coach for many decades, was for professional tennis but was never in favour of the breakup of the original ATP with both genders, ie ATP for men and WTA for women. The ill effects of the breakup are issues to ATP and WTA now, which Hopman saw coming good few decades ago. The United Cup is reformatted Hopman Cup which included both genders and all open events. This could lead to unified ATP in tennis.
The inaugural United Cup began in Australia, late December 2022 in three locations — Brisbane, Sydney and Perth. Wisely organising committee included the state administration of these three cities. Hopman understood the bigger picture of tennis best. In my working stints with him, I remember him repeatedly stating local communities being a critical factor in promotion of sports and sporting events.
The current inaugural United Cup gives an impetus to every local administration to provide the initial platform for all events, not just singles. Tennis of 2023 is in midst of such a transition for the first time in over three decades, in search of new prominent players. Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic replaced from their top five positions. Federer and already retired Nadal will follow suit this year. Djokovic may add up a year or two more.
18 teams compete
Thirteen of the 18 teams qualified into the inaugural United Cup event are from European countries. Two from America, Kazakhstan is Asian, Norway, Scandinavian and Australia. They have the best representation in the ATP and WTA rankings. The events are men’s and women’s singles, doubles and mixed doubles. Teams with better depth in player strength in both genders stand the chance to win. With 15 million dollars as prize money, every match counts.
Australian Open –
AO 2023
The first Grand Slam of the year, the Australian Open begins on January 16 and will go until January 29 in Melbourne. Widely expected the new generation players to dominate and win in both genders. Reading the players Alcaraz is seeded one. There are two others with 6000 plus ATP points. They are Alcaraz and Nadal. Nadal will lose good amount of points at the end of January.
On the women’s side, Simona Halep is halfway through in lifting the doping suspension. The performance enhancing substance Roxadustat entered her taking permitted food supplement. The chemist is been pulled up for it. As at this moment, her suspension is on.
Swiatek is reigning supreme with 11,000 plus points in the WTA ranking and is the favourite. At two is Jabeur with 5000 plus and Pegula of USA and Garcia of France are with 4000 plus. Australian Open 2023 will make some changes to the ranking.
–George Paldano, European and Asian competition player; Coach German Tennis Federation; National coach Brunei and Sri Lanka; Davis Cup, Federation Cup coach, coached ATP, WTA and ITF ranked players in Europe and Asia; WhatsApp +94775448880–