Dubai nets premier tennis tour status

Justine Henin-Hardenne (L) of Belgium and Maria Sharapova of Russia hold their trophies after the final of the Dubai Women's Tennis Championships on February 25, 2006 in Dubai. (C) Getty.

The Dubai Tennis Championships has been boosted by the news that it will form a key part of the women’s tour after it is restructured for the 2009 season. The tournament will form part of a ‘Premier League’ of events, while other less successful, as yet undisclosed, venues will be dropped by the Women’s Tennis Association. “Dubai is one of the best tournaments we have, and we fully expect it to remain among the top echelon of tournaments,” Larry Scott, CEO of the Sony Ericsson Women’s Tour, told Arabian Business.

“To use a football analogy, we’ll probably have approximately 20 tournaments that are the tennis equivalent of a Premier League, that have the top players there,” he added. “These are the cornerstones of a plan dubbed Roadmap 2010, although actually we are ahead of schedule, and most of the changes look as though they’ll be up and running by 2009.” There are currently 62 venues on the tour, as well as an additional three rounds of the Fed Cup. This year, more than 1400 players representing 75 nations are competing for over US$62m in prize money in 35 countries.

As part of the restructuring, there will be a further four tournaments within the group of 20, that are combined women’s and men’s events, however, Dubai is unlikely to feature as one of these four ‘mini grandslam’ events.

“Since there’s only a few of them they’re likely to be in some of the most populous countries of the world — the US, Europe, and China, for example,” said Scott.

“If we don’t make any structural changes I’m sure we’ll see continued growth, but to make the next quantum leap will require unlocking value from an improved circuit structure that sees our top stars playing each other more often, on the biggest stages,” he added.

“We will be dropping some venues from the tour, streamlining the calendar, and lengthening the off-season for the players.”

The Dubai women’s tournament has become a firm favourite of players, sponsors and fans since its inception in 2001. The Aviation Club, which stages all the matches, has hosted a men’s event since 1993.

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READERS' COMMENTS

Dubai is not a tennis-friendly city
Posted by Pio Iskor, Dubai, UAE on Tuesday 13 March 2007 at 09:26 UAE time


Yeah we have Dubai Tennis Championships, overcrowded centercourt and few other court on Aviation, this is nothing compare to the other cities that has huge venues. Much more to the tennis players/ethussiast expats in Dubai, did you know that there is no FREE TENNSI COURT IN DUBAI EXCEPT SATWA PARK? The govt. converted the 3-court Safa Park as paid courts (50/hr) and there are numerous public parks in Dubai that doesnt have tennis courts, all you see are empty football and basketabll courts (check out Mushriif Park, Nad Al Sheba, Al Quoz, and others). Dubai e xpats are not all rick to afford the memberships of Private Health Clubs. This is really strange place, lots of vacant lots, courts on parks but there was no intention to build a TENNIS COURT. Oh yeah there were courts in Al Wasl Club (1 court is exclusive for local employees and seldom we see the court is occupied). Too much commercials for Dubai Govt. that even public tennis courts are converted to private courts. And to think that Shk. Mohd. Bin Rashid Al maktoum has sports program to ease out obesity on Dubai citizen, how can we play our fave sport (tennis) when there is no free court to play, we better spend slouching at home watching DVDs and expect flabs to come.

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