Keeping Tabs: Nov. 7

There’s only one topic fit for the U.S. papers today, of course, Barack Obama’s win over Mitt Romney in the presidential election. But tennis fans can also look at it as a victory of our own, over another upper crust sport that runs in one of the candidates' families. You may recall Ann Romney’s Olympian dressage horse, Rafalca, but did you know that Obama’s older daughter, Malia, is a varsity tennis player at her D.C. prep school? Maybe she could be the Jerzy Janowicz of the WTA someday. Judging by the shot at right of Malia onstage in Chicago last night, she’s already almost as tall as her father. And she has the athletic genes: Michelle Obama’s brother, Craig, is 6-foot-6 and played basketball at Princeton.

It’s been awhile since I rounded up the tennis news, so I’m sure there have been articles that have come and gone that I won’t cover here. Last week I wrote about the biggest fall tennis story, the sport’s still-unfolding reaction to the Usada report on Lance Armstrong. There’s been at least one more development on that front since, which I’ll get to below.

Should They Stay, or Should They Go?

The theme song, until this year, at the World Tour Finals has been the Clash’s 1979 anthem “London Calling.” It made for dramatic entrance music, even if it was hard to tell what the dystopian words—“phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust;” “come out of the cupboard, you boys and girls”—had to do with the Top 8 tennis players in the world. The tournament went in a different direction this year, but in theory it could have stuck with another Clash song, “Should I Stay or Should I Go?’

That was the question that faced the ATP in 2012: Keep the World Tour Finals, the biggest event that the tour owns, in London, where it has been a success over the last three years; or return to their old policy of moving the tournament around the world, to “seed” new tennis markets.

Today the ATP decided to extend its stay at the 02 Arena for two more years. It’s hard to fault that decision. The Barclays has a big local title sponsor and sells tickets in the hundreds of thousands, and the production in London has made it look and feel worthy of a prestigious year-end championship. Moving it from an “emerging” tennis market, Shanghai, to a mature one in a Western media capital was the right move. Still, I like the idea of keeping the WTF rotating, to see what the event might become in another city. Novak Djokovic said something similar this week.

So my vote is for the ATP to keep it in London for those two years, and then send it to...my hometown of Brooklyn. There’s sponsor synergy—Brooklyn’s new arena is, like the WTF, named after Barclays. And the owner of the basketball team that plays there, the Nets, is a Russian billionaire who loves tennis. Last but not least, I could walk to it.

When Will the Testers Get Here?

That’s what Roger Federer has apparently been asking himself recently.

“I don’t know the exact reasons why we are being tested less,” Federer told reporters in London this weekend, when asked about Andy Murray’s desire for more blood tests. “At this moment I agree with Andy, we don’t do a lot of blood testing during the year. I don’t like it when I’m only getting tested whatever number it is, which I don’t think is enough or sufficient during the year.”

Federer was tested, according to the ITF, between five and nine times in 2011; a decade ago, Andre Agassi and other top players were routinely tested more than twice that much.

According to Reuters, the ITF conducted just 21 out of competition blood tests in 2011, compared to 3,341 by the much-maligned International Cycling Union.

If Federer, Murray, and Djokovic, who also says he wants more tests, can increase prize money for everyone, they can use the same unified pressure to improve the tour’s anti-doping regime. It should be remembered, though, that the important number isn’t how many times players are tested overall, but how many times they’re tested out of competition, without warning.

Miami Heat

It’s our lucky day: How often do two different tournament-venue related stories break on the same morning? Today the people of Miami-Dade County in Florida voted to allow the IMG-owned Sony Open to make $50 million worth of renovations to its site and expand its footprint farther into Crandon Park.

The proposal was fought by Bruce Matheson, whose family donated the land in 1940. He claimed the expansion violated the park’s original Master Plan. IMG’s renovation will include a bigger stadium court and three new grandstands. (See the rendering above.) The company made a case that the tournament generates $386 million and brings in 20,000 spectators from outside the area each year.

Like a (Relatively) Good Neighbor

Miami isn’t the only place where a tennis tournament’s desire to expand will cut into scarce public-park land. Two New York Times pieces from last month—both are worth reading in full, here and here—detailed how the U.S. Open’s proposal to slice off another corner of already endangered Corona Park will only make the area more crowded for the neighborhood families that use it all year. This time, though, according to the Times' Michael Powell, the USTA could end up playing the good guy.

That’s because there's an even worse guy in the story: Major League Soccer is proposing to plant a new stadium smack in the middle of the park, a development that, “tennis officials view with concern.” The soccer stadium, which has been cheered by politicians but is opposed by local residents, would mean having to build new parking lots and roads that will cross close to the National Tennis Center. The real losers, though, would be the locals, and the city itself. Grass doesn’t grow in many places in the boroughs of New York.

Your Money’s No Good Here

That’s what the ATP has apparently said to Indian Wells tournament organizers today.

According to *USA Today*,

“[Tournament] CEO Raymond Moore has offered to increase prize money by $1.6 million—$800,000 for each tour—with the bulk to be distributed to the winners of the first three rounds. To Moore’s surprise, the tour did not approve the increase in a vote Tuesday.” Moore said he was still waiting for an explanation.

Last year, the tournament did the same thing, but demanded that the money go to the winners of the quarters, semis, and finals. If that was approved, why not raises for the early-round losers this time? That has been, until now, the tours' priority this season. As for the WTA, Moore said he has gotten “positive feedback,” but it won’t vote on the increase until next month.

The Maestro Conducts Behind the Scenes

Speaking of those prize money increases, Doug Robson of USA Today has a piece on one of the big players in making them happen: Roger Federer. Robson profiles Federer the “back room power broker,” who hosts, sometimes to the chagrin of his coach, Paul Annacone, three hour player-council meetings in his hotel room during big tournaments. The story makes it clear that Federer prizes practicality and results in pressing the players’ concerns.

“More important, Federer said, is the ‘productive’ dialogue taking place. ‘I’m happy that we’ve gotten to the table with the Slams and been able to explain our case,’ he said."

Perhaps more interesting for controversy lovers (and who among us isn’t one?) are Federer’s words about Rafael Nadal.

“Federer is not shy in pointing out that in his extended absence due to knee problems, Nadal has been largely MIA from the players’ push for a larger share of revenues from the majors. ‘Players do look up to Rafa, so it would be nice to see him maybe a bit more engaged.’”

It’s true that Nadal has given up his seat on the player council, but he did play a role in getting more prize money out of the French Open and Wimbledon earlier this year.

The Curse of the Fed

OK, one last Roger-related piece, which ran in the New York Times during the baseball playoffs last month.

A GRACEFUL SWING THAT BEARS RESEMBLANCE TO FEDERER’S

That swing belongs to Robinson Cano, shortstop for the New Yankees, and one of the game’s best hitters (see it here). Mike Kelleher, the team’s first base coach and a tennis fan, spent the season watching Cano from down the first base line, and he found himself with sense of dejà vú as he watched him swing.

“Kelleher observed that [Cano and Federer] shared balletic footwork, soft hands, and long, smooth swings.”

He found immediate agreement from a somewhat surprising place: “It’s a beautiful analogy,” Alex Rodriguez said. “Both swings have the grace and power and the follow through. They are each a thing of beauty.”

Sacrilege, you say? You may be on to something. After the article appeared, Cano went into his worst slump of the season—0 for 26—when the pressure was on in the playoffs.

As a Twitter follower of mine named Ray Krueger noted, “You should never take Federer’s name in vain.”