LOS ANGELES — Monday evening, two-time tournament champ Pete Sampras was crushing his patented forehand in front of a sold-out crowd. Wednesday afternoon, rivals Jim Courier and Stefan Edberg were exchanging backhands as they battled for their opening set. A few hours later, the ageless Michael Chang was out signing autographs and roaming the tournament grounds.
Fans have every right to be confused. As one spectator was overheard saying, “Wait a second — how long have I been asleep?”
Even the tournament ads scattered around Westwood are a blast from the past: a screaming Boris Becker on one poster…a fist-pumping Andre Agassi on another. Hollywood loves to remake old hits, so why not pro tennis? In fact, let us go one better. Strolling around the tournament site, one might — if not for the iPods and text messaging — actually believe it was ’99.
And for tournament organizers, that seems to be the intent. The L.A. Open continues through Sunday on the UCLA campus. Tommy Haas and Mardy Fish are the tournament’s top two seeds. Not that anyone realizes it. Look carefully and you’ll find some very good players in this year’s draw — and some interesting stories to follow. Santa Monica’s Sam Querrey looks to be on his way to a breakout summer. Qualifier Carsten Ball is having the week of his tennis life. American Robert Kendrick, who has toiled and struggled on the tour for years, reached an all-time high (No. 69) in the rankings last week. If you’re a fan of tennis, you’ll have no problem finding good, competitive, compelling matches to keep you entertained. But for the novice fan, the guy who needs a marquis name (Andy Roddick, for example) to lure him into the stadium, the current draw is lacking. Enter The Legends.
So the question was raised: by scheduling the Sampras and the gang at key times during the week, and by even adding them to the marketing campaign, are tournament officials confusing the average fan? In other words, are they blurring the line between the real tournament — an event whose highest ranked player is Haas at No. 20 — and the “pretend” one — with four Hall of Famers holding 25 Grand Slams titles amongst them? Longtime L.A. Open TD Bob Kramer says no.
“Like last year, we have many of our main draw players in the top 100, we’ve got the Bryan brothers here, and some marquis names within that group,” Kramer said. “We’re going to play all 27 singles matches and all 15 doubles matches. I think by having Pete, and Jim, and Stefan and Michael play [in the exos], it’s just extra. So, we’re providing added value to the fans. I don’t think it’s taking away from the tournament, I think it is adding to it. Personally, I think it’s complementing it. But we’ll find out. The fans will vote with their pocket books.”
In fairness, tournament officials here are faced with an almost impossible task. Their job is to fill the seats. But it’s difficult to sell tickets when the top players — due to a crammed schedule and ranking system that barely rewards the top guys for playing smaller events anymore — aren’t compelled to play your event.
“Encouraging the players or requiring the players to play [in the smaller events] would be helpful. How do we get the top guys to play two or three more events, at the level that we’re at. That is the key question for us,” Kramer said.
In the ’90s, during the tournament’s golden age, there was no shortage of big name players willing to make the trip to UCLA.
“Pete [Sampras] and I talked about this on Monday. He basically broke it down to, it was an American situation. When we had our greatest strength [as a tournament], we did have multiple Americans sharing Grand Slams — Pete and Michael and Andre and Jim — and we were able to attract those players here on a regular basis, even before the U.S. Open Series.”
Now, with the tournament numbering system (1000s, 500s and 250s) and the different events top players are required to play, a smaller tournament like L.A. (250) gets left out in the cold.
“If you’re an American, and you don’t want to play overseas very much [but still meet the required number of “500” tournaments] you’re going to play Memphis and Washington. And if you play Washington, and then play [Masters Series events in] Cincinnati and Canada, that’s three weeks of tennis in a row. You’re not going to add Los Angeles and play a fourth week.”
For the smaller tournaments, it’s all about grabbing one or two top players and trying to sell tickets.
“We’re all battling for just a few top names,” Kramer sighs.
L.A. did get some big names this year. Too bad they’re not in the draw.
NOTES: American John Isner hung on to win his second round match over Marcos Baghdatis 6-3, 7-6(11), despite rolling his left ankle at 10-10 in the second set tiebreaker. After a brief visit by the trainer, a wincing Isner managed to pull out the next three points against a distracted Baghdatis to secure the match. The 24-year-old pulled out of his doubles and was seen hobbling (no crutches) off the tournament grounds, his ankle securely wrapped. Isner has Thursday off, and is scheduled to play qualifier Carsten Ball on Friday. “We’ll see how it feels,” Isner said. The all but invisible second seed Fish will finally take the court for his opening match Thursday night against wildcard Chris Guccione. The top four seeds all received byes into the round of sixteen. Marat Safin gutted out another three-setter Wednesday afternoon, knocking off hard-hitting Ernests Gulbis 2-6, 6-3, 6-4. He will next play the top seeded Haas, who crushed American wildcard Jesse Levine 6-1, 6-3…Tournament organizers were giddy over the idea of a Taylor Dent-Sam Querrey “bombs away” match-up in the second round. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. Local favorite and wildcard recipient Dent quickly lost his opener to qualifier Ryan Sweeting 6-4, 2-6, 6-3. Dent’s serve still isn’t where it needs to be. Nor his backcourt game. Or fitness. In other words, the 28-year-old American still has a long road to travel.
