Recently I came into possession of something quite interesting. Priceless, really. Rebel spies, risking life and limb, were able to smuggle this top-secret item from the epicenter of women’s tennis, WTA HQ in St. Petersburg, Fla., to the epicenter of tennis journalism, TENNIS Magazine HQ in New York City. There, on my desk, they placed a large book, 100 pages thick, with these words printed on the cover: THE REAL WTA ROADMAP.
“Holy Serena!” I shouted. “Could it be?” I thumbed through the wrinkled and ripped manual, which clearly went through hell to get here (did the rebels pry it from Larry Scott’s mouth?), and came to the shocking realization that the women’s tour has been engaged in a covert operation. The “Roadmap” that the tour has been touting in the press for the better part of the last year—the one that promises to shorten the season and enforce player commitments so the stars compete against each other more often—is a hoax. On my desk was the real deal.
Here were some of the revelations, major and minor.
Volley Lessons
Effective Jan. 1, 2009, all WTA players, regardless of rank, will be required to take a minimum of 250 hours of lessons at net each year. The teaching pros, who will be paid in full by the tour, will ask the players to pass No (Wo)Man’s Land and finish points with a short, punching motion, otherwise known as a volley. We know this may frighten some players, but we believe in the interest of the game’s aesthetics and tradition it’s the right thing to do. Note: Justine Henin is excused.
The Eyes Don’t Have It
This is a minor point of contention, but effective Jan. 1, 2009, the Tour hereby proscribes the practice of players looking at their coaches/fathers/agents/spiritual gurus after every…single….point.
Moving Farther East
It’s come to our attention that the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour hasn’t fully taken advantage of the deep tennis tradition in Asia and the Middle East. So, effective Jan. 1, 2009, we will move all tour-level events to those regions, with no fewer than 10 tournaments to be staged in Qatar and UAE, where we will pocked untold sums of money. But here’s the kicker—all of the monies will not go into prize money (sorry, girls) or raises for management but will be used as a catalyst to bring about gender equality and social change in the Middle East. Billie Jean King, eat your heart out!
Longer Summer Vacation
The Tour has spoken at length about the importance of the top players competing in all of the major events, and we’ve said that we intend to enforce our rules to make all of the stars honor their tournament commitments. But who are we kidding? We have about as much power to tell Maria and Serena what to do as a father of teenage daughters with American Express gold cards.
We also realize that we got ourselves into this situation. Back in the day, there was this girl, you may remember her—Anna Kournikova. Well, the entire machinery of women’s tennis, from the tour to the agents to advertisers, went overboard in marketing her as anything but a tennis player. The cult of celebrity was born on the tour. We’ve since given the players a powerful and ever-expanding platform to become multi-media stars. Once they hit the red carpet, they don’t seem as keen on hitting tennis balls. Who would have thunk it?
So, effective Jan. 1, 2009, we will hereby declare that there will be no tour commitments, and we also hereby announce that the time from mid-July to mid-August, which coincides with the U.S. Open Series, will now be an official Tour vacation. So, ladies, you can put away those doctors’ notes.
The Name Game
Many pundits have cracked wise about the fact that our Miami event is called the Sony Ericsson Open and our season-ending event the Sony Ericsson Championships. They claim it’s “confusing.” Whatever. Frankly, we’re sick and tired of being ripped a new one for our marketing. It’s time we fought back. So, effective Jan. 1, 2009, all Tier I and III level tournaments (but not II and IV) will have Sony Ericsson in their names. That’s right, the whole lot of them. Let’s see how “confused” these journalists are then.
The Numbers Game
Critics have taken us to task for not compiling basic stats—aces, double faults, percentage of games won on first serve and second serve, etc.—that the ATP does so well. Quite frankly, these numbers can lull us to sleep faster than watching Tommy Robredo against David Ferrer. But we believe we’re on track to overtake them with our new Power Index, which is the average maximum hitting speed of a player’s combined strokes (serves, returns, forehands, backhands, and smashes). To build on the excitement of the Power Index, effective Jan. 1, 2009, the Tour will reward the hardest hitter at the end of every season with an all-expenses-paid trip to the Four Seasons, Nevis—or an all-expenses-paid trip to the orthopedist of her choice.
James Martin is the editor-in-chief of TENNIS magazine.