There followed a few moments of communication confusion, with Harman trying to clarify his point. But even if it was just in his choice of words, he was working off the old template in which guardians of the tournament game and their allies considered exhibitions, with their invitational fields, guaranteed prize money, and potentially fixed results a threat to the integrity of the game. The reality is that the long-standing relationship between tournament tennis and exhibition matches has changed as much as any other aspect of the game, including court speed or string composition.
This wasn't merely a conservative vs. progressive issue, with the fuddy-duddies and other old-school types resisting change and the market forces that were shaping tennis. Back in those days—the late 1970s and 80s—tennis was not nearly as tightly organized and stable an enterprise as it is today. For instance, the other day Jerry Solomon (the prime mover of yesterday's exo in Madison Square Garden) recalled how, around the time he was riding high with his main client Ivan Lendl, he and his cohorts in the agent game would have a meeting before the U.S. Open and the USTA officials would ask, "Well, are your guys going to play the tournament?"
To which the agents would reply, "Well, let's talk about prize money."
Tennis became an "Open," fully professional sport in 1968, and it took (roughly) the ensuing quarter-century for the game to develop the structure it has today. The great battle of the early and mid-Open era was over what pro tennis would look like, and at one time it seemed as if the old amateur-era system, in which players became barnstorming "exhibition" pros after earning names at Grand Slam events and/or in Davis Cup, might carry over to the pro era. That is, you would still make your name at the majors, but tournament tennis was nowhere near the only game in town.
Ultimately, a precursor to our present tournament system won out, partly because the players and enough administrators and promoters preferred the model. But not without a battle.
In the late 1970s, Rogue promoters like Pepsi-Cola (sponsors of the extremely lucrative, four-man exhibition called the Pepsi Grand Slam) popped up, broke out the checkbook to lock in the talent, and staged their event—mindful of how it fit into the overall scheme of things only to the degree that they sought to do business at the most favorable time.
Nobody tried to organize an exhibition during the second week of Wimbledon or the U.S. Open. But smaller tournaments on the budding calendar, some of which faced an uphill struggle for credibility (vis a vis the field they attracted) as well as profitability, were sometimes threatened. In the nightmare scenario, tennis would degenerate into an empty show, featuring high-stakes shootouts in which the principals were not averse to pre-ordaining the result to "improve" the entertainment.
But all that was already changing when the ATP rebelled and went into partnership with the promoters of traditional tournaments. Appearance fees, which were once seen as another, exhibition-like menace, were gradually legitimized (and remain so today). Blanks that once existed in the calendar, inviting anyone with a little money to throw around to organize an exo, were slowly filled in. Basically, the threat of exhibitions was neutralized, even if the rhetoric didn't show it.
For all the flaws in the present system, you have to give the ATP credit for ironing out the kinks and creating so loaded (and remunerative) a calendar that exhibitions have practically been squeezed out of existence. And you have to give the top players credit for going along with this, because it runs contrary to their most narrow self-interest. What threat exhibitions once represented for a game struggling to grow and retain integrity and credibility simply does not exist, and what's the point in criticizing a player's decision to play an exhibition when he already seems overworked? It's his decision, and his price to pay.
Today, the exo is completely legit. In fact, it often seems downright noble, because it often includes a strong charity component and also because of something that has been true all along: An exhibition can be a great advertisement for the game.
As Federer said, "We hardly ever play them, and it's nice to do something a little different, something fun. Sometimes you want to do something down the road with someone, like I did with Pete (Sampras) and now Andy. It's also a good way to promote a charity, and also to get some matches in before a big tournament. It all depends. This one fits in very well."
In all fairness, it ought also to be noted that the players usually make big, big money in exos, but why spoil a nice story with such vulgar considerations? As Roddick said, "Just one more thing on that—I'm not sure how 18,000 people watching our sport and being excited about it can be a bad thing."
