Indifference, Not Injuries, Hurts Field at Indian Wells

Later this month, the women’s tour will release “Roadmap 2010,” its blueprint for a shorter season and healthier players. With any luck, the plan also will repair the attitudes of many of its stars.Injuries undoubtedly have hurt the tour in recent years — what sport wouldn’t suffer with four of its most compelling players, Justine Henin, Kim Clijsters, and Venus and Serena Williams, on the sidelines for weeks, and sometimes months, at a time? (And there have been others, too.)But an equally large problem has been the indifference of the tour’s stars toward a few of the season’s premiere events. Look no further than the Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells, Calif., which began last week and runs through this weekend. The tournament has the largest field other than a Grand Slam event (96 players), a $75 million stadium that seats 16,100 people, an attendance that could reach 300,000 this year (larger than any event other than the four majors and perhaps the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami), and $2.1 million in total prize money, including $307,000 for the winner. It’s also broadcast on television networks throughout the world.Yet three of the top five women — Henin (no. 2), Amelie Mauresmo (no. 3), and Clijsters (no. 5) — have ditched the tournament despite perfect health, simply because they can. The Williams sisters have not attended since 2001, when the crowd booed Serena during her victory in the final over Clijsters (the sisters were scheduled to face each other in the semifinals, but Venus withdrew with an injury moments before the match began, prompting taunts deemed racist by Richard Williams and his daughters).Leaving the Williams sisters’ boycott aside, the other three women have no excuse. Henin just played back-to-back hard-court events in Dubai and Qatar, no doubt collecting appearance fees (long illegal, and long tolerated) that dwarfed the prize money she won. Mauresmo played in Dubai, but decided to rest last week and this week before she begins to train for Miami. Clijsters, a 23-year-old who is playing her last year on the tour and planning a July wedding, is taking a month off. Call it earlier retirement.The absence of these women hasn’t devastated the draw at Indian Wells, but it’s damaged it. Badly. Maria Sharapova is the top seed. The erratic Svetlana Kuznetsova is seeded second. Overall, nine of the top 32 players are missing, which is good news for lower-ranked players, including Olga Poutchkova, Meghann Shaughnessy, and Roberta Vinci. All those women received seeds and byes into the second round. In contrast, the men’s portion of the tournament includes 31 of the top 32 players. (Mario Ancic, no. 11, is out for two months with mononucleosis.)The men must (ostensibly) play Indian Wells: It’s one of nine required Masters events. The women got their first required event last year, the Sony Ericsson Open (after all, one cannot miss the tournament sponsored by the company that owns the naming rights to the entire tour). The Roadmap will likely mandate four events, including Indian Wells. One could make the argument for more requirements, but more important are the penalties the tour devises for failing to play (barring a legitimate injury).Top tennis players earn top dollar and don’t fret over fines. But there are ways to punish them. Suspensions, for the tournament following the one that was missed, are a possibility. A deduction of ranking points would hurt even more. What if missing a mandatory tournament cost a player her best result, in ranking points, for the season? Under that scenario, Serena Williams would fall from no. 15 back down to the 80s in the rankings. Severe? Yes. But certainly effective.The tour likely won’t go for something so drastic. Still, WTA officials know that something must be done. Stacey Allaster, the tour’s president, said that in exchange for a shorter season with more breaks, players would have to commit to the sport’s most important events.“Everyone’s got a responsibility,” Allaster said. “The players’ contribution is, if they are healthy, they need to play those events. That’s how women’s tennis is going to grow.”At the moment, the WTA is debating suspensions that would be rescinded if the offending players agreed to travel to the tournament and promote it (sign autographs, greet fans, etc.). It also wants to crack down on appearance fees. If a smaller event, like the Dubai Open, attracts more than two of the top six players, it’s a good bet that the tournament is handing out duffel bags stuffed with cash (this year, Dubai fielded four of six, and would have fielded five if Maria Sharapova had not pulled out with a hamstring injury). One way to combat this, the WTA hopes, is to force those tournaments to pay substantially more in total prize money if they attract a strong field.Withdrawals don’t just plague the women’s tour. The men frequently miss Masters tournaments, required or not — see the Paris Masters, 2005 and 2006. The ATP wants to reduce the number of required events to eight, and add penalties that will force players to comply. Right now, though, the simple fact of requirement has given the men a better track record than the women. Last year, Indian Wells had only four of the top 10 players in the world; this year, it has six, which is the minimum required under its contract with the tour.The fact that the tour and its players do not guarantee a better field gives Indian Wells an excuse to pay the men more prize money (winning the title nets $500,000). The executives at Wimbledon finally gave up on unequal pay this year, at last realizing that their argument, fewer sets equals lower pay, made no sense, since the women do as much for ticket sales and television ratings as the men. Indian Wells is different. Until the women on tour start treating it like the tournament it deserves to be, one can’t blame the organizers for returning the favor.tperrotta@nysun.com

Indifference, Not Injuries, Hurts Field at Indian Wells

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