Update on Ugandan Davis Cup player Patrick Olobo and photojournalist Rex Miller’s plan to get him to the U.S. to advance his dream of becoming a tennis pro: This morning, with nothing definite yet on the ticket front for Super Saturday, I made my desperation move.
I went to see if I could get a few tickets off my friend of many years, Bill Babcock. He’s the Executive Director of Davis Cup and Men’s Tennis for the International Tennis Federation.
I gave Bill the short version of Patrick’s story (you can find previous posts on this subject by typing Patrick’s name in the Search box on this page). He got on the phone to London (where it was around 8 P.M.) and started going through names and punching in extensions.
It felt vaguely surreal to be sitting in a stark, makeshift office in cavernous Arthur Ashe stadium, surrounded by computers and fax machines and printers, while Bill spoke to a succession of “development” experts overseas. But within 15 minutes, the fax machine had kicked out a two-page summary of Patrick’s results as a junior and Davis Cup player in places like Rwanda, Kenya, and Uganda.
Now, if any of you ever wonder why I so often take the side of the ITF or its affiliates (national federations including the USTA, certain tournaments, including Wimbledon) in conflicts with the pro tours (ATP or WTA) or on issues like revenue sharing or prize-money allocations, the best answer is the essence of the paragraph above.
The pro tours and players are in business for themselves. The ITF and its affiliates are in the tennis business; their raison d'etre is making the game grow. The ATP and WTA partner with the ITF in the effort in ways that make sense for those outfits. For example, they work with the ITF to enable players to play their way up through the system, earning points that create their rankings and ulitmately determine which tournaments they have a right to enter.
But the ITF walks point. It is the only organization with the mandate and resources to grow the game and spread the tennis messsage. That's why Wimbledon turns over an enormous portion its profits to the British Lawn Tennis Association (the ITF affiliate).
So, not matter what anyone says about elitism, stuffy Wimbledon, middle-aged white men with out-of-control nose or ear hairs, tennis-whites-only rules or the USTA’s sometimes certifiably insane scheduling decisions (See "A" for Agassi-Blake) – none of it comes even close to discrediting or besmirching the work the ITF does. Each year the ITF (and its affiliates) pour millions of dollars into the sport at the grass roots level, and it doesn’t even get publicized.
Bill got off the phone, excused himself, and left the office. He returned in a few minutes with two grounds passes for Saturday. So Patrick and Rex are in. When I updated my buddy Matt Cronin (co-president of the International Tennis Writers Association, with Eleanor Preston) where the situation stood, he volunteered that ITWA probably would agree to purchasing a pair of seats inside the stadium.
Great gesture, from a great guy. I say that even though I lost a bet with Matt on the outcome of the Tormentieva/Pierce match. I now have to buy him a box of Marlboro Lights. Yeah, I play at the high stakes table.