WTA Tour Faces Grave Challenges in U.S.

It's that time again for both the ATP and Sony Ericsson WTA Tours to head to sunny California for the Pacific Life Open. The draws are set and play began in earnest on March 7th. The draws are packed with top players, and so far no real notable pullouts or injuries.

This is good news for the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour and its, CEO Larry Scott. Scott has been very concerned after last year's record number of injuries and pullouts of top-15 players from tournaments. Clearly, the tour needs to have its marquee names healthy, and even more so have them able to fulfill their tour commitments.

The WTA Tour has done an amazing job of bringing in good sponsors and partners, all who have helped make the tour a worthwhile entertainment venture. But is the picture as rosey as it might seem?

The women's tour is clearly facing a pivotal moment. The money is there, the venues are there — heck, Wimbledon has finally agreed to equal prize money for men and women. Seems like everything is fine. But no, media coverage of tennis in general still is laughable in the dailies and weeklies, you find little or no news about it on regular sports channels like ESPN, and rarely does a sports report on the local news even get to mention tennis. And when it does, its usually men's tennis.

Gone from the women's tour is its most popular name (Anna Kournikova, where are you?) and Maria Sharapova, while clearly a more accomplished player, is not the name or face Anna is and was. The quality of the tennis on the women's tour has never been better, but the names and faces of the top players seem unknown to all but a few. The retirement of Lindsay Davenport, the disappearance of Jennifer Capriati, and the slide of the Williams sisters definitely took the American mainstream media's mind away from the women's game. Serena's victory in Australia got them to raise an eyebrow for a minute, but that seems to have faded, as well.

So Larry Scott is right. The tour needs to keep its top players out on the courts, and at all of the tournaments they commit to. Ticket sales need to stay high, and the bigger names need to show so that in markets like Cincinnati, Chicago, Indianapolis, Oklahoma City, and the like women's tennis winds up on the front page of the local paper everyday when the tour is in town.

But Scott and the WTA Tour can't do it all. Not since Billie Jean King and Chris Evert graced the courts has women's professional tennis had any real advocate from the ranks. The money is so good today, and the focus of most athletes is so self-centered that they forget that you have to really give back. Don't get me wrong. With rare exception, all of the young women of the WTA Tour are all nice and compassionate people. They seem to have forgotten, however, that they must be proactive faces and role models for tennis.

Women's tennis seems eerily like NHL hockey right before the strike two years ago. The names are just as international, and the attitude seems to be getting similar. The players are the most important part of the game, no doubt, but without tournaments, sponsors, and the infrastructure of the sport of tennis, absolutely none of this would exist, and they'd all be amateur players again. The women of the WTA Tour and their teams should take a very close look at the NHL, and what the strike did to the sport. In reality, most fans didn't miss hockey the year they were gone, and when it came back, retailers stopped carrying a large amount of hockey goods and long-time fans even stopped showing up. Women's tennis would not survive a gap in coverage like this.

Unfortunately, we Americans aren't doing our part, either. With only one U.S. player in the top 30 (Serena sits at 15 at the time of this article), we haven't given the American media a lot of hometown stories, either. I love Martina Hingis, can't wait till Kim Clijsters starts spending more time down here on the Jersey Shore, I can't get enough of Jelena Jankovic, I find Nadia Petrova compelling, want to see Anna Ivanovic break out this year, hope Daniela Hantuchova regains the promise of a few years ago, and I look for Patty Schnyder every chance I get. But I miss the great American story, having the girl next door to root for. I don't know when or where the next Chrissy or Billie Jean will come from, but I hope its soon.

I'll be watching closely as this season unfolds. Women's tennis is still the best entertainment sports product on the market, and I can't get enough of it. I just hope that the story of the year when it is all said and done is how great the year was on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour, and not the retirement of Kim Clijsters.