Eugène Lapierre

News from Indian Wells

ATP and Sony Ericsson WTA Tour tournament directors generally meet four times a year. I was happy that the March meetings were held in Indian Wells, at the Pacific Life Open, instead of at the Miami tournament as they have been for the past five years. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with the tournament in Florida (quite the contrary!) but the California desert is a truly exceptional setting. A stadium in the desert, less than two hours from Los Angeles, green spaces that magically appear and which are undoubtedly irrigated by the “Indian wells” themselves, 25 courts, tennis’ best hitting and training everywhere you look, a blue sky, palm trees, 25 comfortable degrees, no rain in sight, and the snow-capped Rockies in the background. My only disappointment was that the snow in Montréal hadn’t melted by the time I got back!

First up on my agenda: a one on one with Ana Ivanovic. As the saying goes, it’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it. In all honesty though, and I don’t want to sound macho, but I must say that she’s even more beautiful in person. She also made our meeting doubly worthwhile by confirming her participation in this summer’s Rogers Cup during a telephone conference with Montréal’s main media outlets. The fact that the number two player in the world would be willing confirm so early in the season is definitely a good omen for our tournament. Players don’t usually commit until the last minute (42 days before the tournament begins), waiting to see how the first half of their season will progress. But this year, with the Olympics in Beijing right after Montréal and just before the US Open, the WTA schedule offers few alternatives. Players can either head to the West Coast right after Wimbledon to play smaller tournaments (Stanford and Los Angeles) and where they may want to stay before leaving for China, or they can rest after a busy spring and test themselves on the hardcourts in Montréal before the Olympics. The latter is exactly what our 2006 champion chose to do and explained that, almost in those exact terms, to journalists. We’re hoping, of course, that there will be more good news to come.

It’s true that meetings can sometimes be a little tedious but the ones held recently were quite the opposite as both the men’s and women’s tours are finalizing the restructuring of their tournaments for 2009. Issues such as tournament categories, marketing, prize money and point distribution, and penalties for players who unfairly pull out of tournaments were all discussed, as were the measures taken to curb betting and the new rules to control access to the locker rooms, and Hawk-Eye. Needless to say, I’ll have many subjects to discuss in upcoming newsletters!

In the meantime, I have some snow to shovel.

Eugène Lapierre