November 4, 2012
Former stars bring back fall tennis to New York
By Nicholas McCarvel
Nine years ago, Mark Coronado sat courtside at the State Farm Classic, the WTA tour's only stop in the Phoenix area, and thought to himself, "There just isn't any energy at this event."
Twelve months later, the tournament, held in Scottsdale, Ariz., went overseas to Doha, Qatar, just four years after it had arrived. In 2006, Phoenix also lost its men's professional tournament, the Arizona Tennis Classic.
But in 2008, encouraged by a "tennis buff city councilman," Coronado, the community and recreation services director in Surprise, Ariz., began searching for ways to bring high-level tennis back to the area. Through the United States Tennis Association, the city was connected with Jim Courier, a retired American tennis player who ran a series of senior tour events through his company, InsideOut Sports.
Two years later, the Phoenix area got pro tennis back, but instead of Roger Federer or Serena Williams, retired stars like Courier, Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras arrived. "We filled a void in Phoenix where I used to play at an Association of Tennis Professionals stop," Courier said. "That is a big tennis area. They just needed a new event to support."
The Surprise event is among 12 on the tour known as the PowerShares Series, which has helped start a new tennis season in the United States as top-level events make their way out of North America. On Monday, the tour will be at Madison Square Garden for the first time, with the Nasdaq Indexes Cup, featuring Agassi, Sampras, John McEnroe and Patrick Rafter.
"We're giving everyone a one-night tennis tournament in three hours," Courier said. "We've hit a niche within the tennis world." Courier's one-night, three-hour format works like this: four players are entered in the draw and play one-set semifinals. After a short break (cue the local entertainment), a final set is played; the first player to eight games wins.
"This is what works for these guys," said Courier, whose roster of players this fall also includes Ivan Lendl, Mats Wilander, Michael Chang and Todd Martin.
Although Madison Square Garden has held a tennis exhibition each spring since 2008, the last time tennis was played there in the fall was in 2000, the final year the WTA Championships were held in New York. Monday signifies the return of autumn tennis to New York City. In 1990, 25 of 60 WTA events were held in the United States. This year, only 11 of 59 have been held in the States.
By comparison, the men's tour held 18 of its 82 pro tournaments in the United States in 1990. This year? Just 11 of 67.
That will soon become 10. The S.A.P. Open has existed in some form in the Bay Area since 1894, but will move in 2014 to Memphis, which lost its ATP event to Brazil. South America, in a growing effort to support the 2016 Rio Summer Games, will host a new series of fall tournaments beginning in 2014.
"Tennis is name-driven; now it's Roger and Rafa," Sampras said last week. "With my generation, it was Andre and myself and Jim and Michael. Now, American tennis is not quite as dominating."
That is one reason the PowerShares Series has built a successful model with headliners like Agassi and Sampras. And for cities that have already lost their pro tour stops --- like Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia --- having the seniors come through appeals to the fans. Later this month, the tour will visit San Jose, where the final S.A.P. Open will take place in February.
"It has had some success marketing tennis," Jon Venison, Courier's business partner, said of San Jose. "So we felt like it was a good place to go. It's a one-year deal, so we'll see how it goes."
The PowerShares Series has grown from one event in 2005 to 12 this year. Last year, the tour drew 5,000 to 7,000 fans a night. Although there are no plans to expand the number of events, the tour has explored adding women. "Men's and women's tennis together is a powerful experience for fans," Courier said. "We'd love to bring the women on board." But he noted that the headlining women were interested only in one-off exhibitions, not a multicity tour.
"We would love to set up an entire women's tour," he said.