Salah Tahlak, the tournament director of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships, has blasted the WTA players for their “lack of commitment” and urges the chiefs of the sport to investigate ways that would ensure last week’s slew of high profile withdrawals doesn’t happen again.
Serena Williams, Angelique Kerber, Agnieszka Radwanska and Dubai Duty Free global ambassador Caroline Wozniacki, were amongst a lengthy list of absentees that made last-minute decisions not to compete in the tournament.
The fact that the top eight seeds all crashed out before the quarter-finals, without winning a single match – the first time this has occurred at any tournament – compounded the organisers’ misery and Tahlak admits it affected the ticket sales “drastically”.
“This is the first time ever for us where all the eight seeds lost before the quarter-finals. That hit us badly. The players sometimes they don’t see or think how much the events and cities are investing behind this. And we invested a lot of money,” said Tahlak, who is also the vice president – corporate communications at Dubai Duty Free, the owners of the tournament.
“We built the stadium, we built a five-star onsite hotel, all this counts over the years. And then imagine to have all the pictures of Serena, Radwanska, Caroline, all of them on Sheikh Zayed Road, it’s a lot of money.
“We are losing a lot of money, and then plus, to lose one of our brand ambassadors not to come (Wozniacki). We absolutely appreciate what she did for us previously, she was really good at it, she attended all the events, she was committed. But this year everything collapsed, that’s really bad.
“All the top seeds not coming, not attending, that impacted our ticket sales, the tickets sales was very bad, it dropped drastically.
“You could see the first day of the men’s, same time of the women’s singles final, I think the final of the ladies, it was 50 per cent full, whereas the first day of the men’s, at 7pm, it was packed.
“So this is a problem. We spend a lot of money on ladies’ tennis, and we equalised the prize money, but it seems it’s not working.”
Tahlak with Williams in 2014, who was a late withdrawal from the tournament.
This year, the Dubai tournament was a Premier event, not Premier 5, meaning it offered less points, had a smaller draw, and less prize money (although Dubai Duty Free offer $1.3 million more than the minimum required from a Premier tournament according to Tahlak).
Dubai and Doha alternate the Premier 5 status each year which could explain why players like Kerber, Radwanska and Wozniacki skipped Dubai but went to Doha – which is the bigger tournament this season.
WTA president Micky Lawler told Gulf News that the current set-up will be discussed in a meeting next week.
Asked if the arrangement to alternate the status with Doha is working, Tahlak said: “I would say yes and no. For us it’s not a big deal to have a Premier or a Premier 5 because Dubai is Dubai. The week is good for us, it’s working, for us it’s two tournaments back-to-back, while in Doha, they have the men’s in the first week of the year and the women play now, so for them it’s a different ball game.
“For us, it’s one event, and we sell everything as one package. The only difference is that in the first week we had WTA on the net post while in the men’s week we have Fly Emirates. This Emirates deal is a great one, it’s worldwide and it’s good for us.
“For us, we had many sponsors who wanted to sponsor just one week, either the ladies’ or the men’s, but we said ‘no, we package it and sell it as one event’.
“Maybe (it’s affecting the players’ decision on whether to attend or not), I don’t know. I think both Dubai and Doha deserve the Premier 5 status. We both did well. Doha did really well for the WTA Championships for three years.
“The new strategy and plan will be discussed in a WTA board meeting next week.
“Hopefully, something changes because we’re not happy about the whole situation, and we have done a lot for the WTA and we’re still doing… we’re still global sponsors, we still like the sport, and we don’t want to penalise them because they have done well.
“But again, a tournament without players is not a tournament, and cities without spending money there is no tournament, it’s all commitment.”
Asked if he saw the problem as a lack of commitment from the players, Tahlak said: “Yes, big time. Players are the main thing.”
