!201110261849677546319-p2@stats_comby Pete Bodo
It looks like the WTA has hit a home run with its decision to play its prestigious year-end championships in Istanbul, Turkey. Tournament organizers have already told TENNIS.com correspondent Doug Robson that the final four days are a sellout. So it will be interesting to see what kind of spin the WTA will put on the extravaganza once the dust settles.
Will the WTA emphasize the great depth of the women's tour, what with streaking Agniezska Radwanska and first-time Grand Slam champs Petra Kvitova (a painfully shy 21-year-old) and veteran Sam Stosur all still in with a chance as of the final day of round-robin play? Perhaps the outfit will stress the star power of emerging young players like still-Slamless-but-already-famous Caroline Wozniacki and Victoria Azarenka. The WTA might even suggest that the success of Istanbul shows that the women's tennis can stand on its own two legs, no longer a quadra-ped depending on the Williams sisters, Kim Clijsters and Maria Sharapova.
The real roots of the WTA's success in Istanbul are less obvious and only tangentially related to the state of women's tennis. To take the WTA Championships as a measure of the health of women's tennis, or international interest in the WTA game, would be a serious mistake. That's because the organizers in Turkey have gone out of their way to accomodate the WTA, and to ensure that its season-ending finale is a big hit. The reason? Turkey wants to host the Olympic Games of 2020. In order to be taken seriously by the International Olympic Committee, Turkey must demonstrate (among other things) that it can successfully stage large-scale international events.
The recently built, cavernous, multi-use Sinan Erdem arena (capacity: roughly 23,000, but downsized by half to enhance the tennis viewing experience) where the championships are underway has already successfully hosted the FIBA international basketball championships. If this tennis event also comes off without a glitch and gets adequate international attention, it will enhance Turkey's hopes to host the Olympics (for more on that, see my column over at ESPN). In a sense, the WTA championships bring to mind that still controversial term, "too big to fail." You can bet that Turkey (for the state is always heavily involved in the Olympic effort, except in nations so advanced and wealthy that individual cities can compete successfully) is going to do everything in its power to make the championships a huge hit.
In his piece the other day, Robson reported that about 8,000 fans were present at Tuesday's 5 PM opening match of the event. Does anyone really believe that the takeaway is that Turkey is choc-a-bloc with tennis-starved fans, dying to pay professional-grade ticket prices to attend the first match of a big tournament? I know that Marsel Ilhan, Turkey's first top 100 ATP player, has made tennis a sport of interest in Turkey, and is right up there among the half-dozen most recognizable athletes in Turkey (or that's what Ilhan and his coach, Can Uner, told me when we visited at the U.S. Open). But it's a long way from there to pack a huge stadium with fans paying what might be called competitive prices.
But don't get me wrong. There's nothing really "wrong" with any of this. Turkish officials poured a reported $42 milllon into the WTA coffers to make this championships happen, and in the end the sport of tennis wins (at least in the short term), Turkish tennis fans win, the WTA wins, and Turkey's Olympic committee wins. It's all business, and business done well, it appears.
However, the success of the WTA in Istanbul proves nothing about the allure of the WTA game because the common benchmarks (paid attendance, sponsor contributions, and television revenues) are all skewed, compromised by the motives and methods of the host. The only thing a successful Championships will prove is that the organization has a vehicle (the Championships) that can be a very useful tool on the international playing field of public relations (just ask Doha, where the Championships were held in the three previous years).
It beats a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, but the WTA would be unwise to draw any larger and more tennis-specific conclusions than that about it's Turkish success.