INSIDE STORY: Women's tennis could expand eastwards

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  • Spectacular: Wuhan Open's Optics Valley tennis centre.

    The WTA 2016 season officially wraps up this week with the Elite Trophy Zhuhai, which is the eighth tournament on the women’s circuit that takes place in mainland China.

    The tour’s expansion in the country had been high on the agenda of former WTA CEO Stacey Allaster, who was replaced a year ago by Steve Simon, and it resulted in a total of 10 events staged throughout the year across mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan – two of which are quite significant in status.

    Beijing hosts a $5.4m Premier Mandatory tournament (the second-highest tier just under the WTA Finals tour-ending championships), while the city of Wuhan is the venue for a $2.3m Premier 5 event (third-highest tier).

    The Dongfeng Motor Wuhan Open came to life in 2014, when the tour relocated a Premier 5 tournament from Tokyo to the Chinese city. It is owned by the sports and entertainment agency, Octagon, and was leased for 15 years to Wuhan Sports Development Investment Co.

    Other Premier 5 events are hosted in major cities like Montreal/Toronto, Cincinnati, Dubai/ Doha, and Rome. When one thinks of a big city in China, Wuhan is not necessarily the first (or even 10th) name that springs to mind. So how, and why, did Wuhan end up staging such an important tennis tournament on the women’s tour?

    The answer traces back to three things: Li Na, massive investment, and an ambition from the city itself to elevate its status within China as well as globally. Wuhan, the capital of the Hubei province with a population of 10 million people, is the hometown of Li Na, Asia’s first and only singles grand slam champion.

    When discussions started in 2012 between Octagon and the Wuhan municipal government, Li Na had just won her first slam, at the 2011 French Open, was ranked No 5 in the world, and was the second-highest paid female athlete on the planet.

    Unfortunately for organisers, Li Na ended up retiring, due to recurring knee injuries, in September 2014, just before the start of the first edition of the Wuhan Open.

    A total investment of $225million had been made into building the state-of-the art tennis facility, that includes a 15,000-seat centre court, in Wuhan’s developing Optics Valley area. They got the tournament and had built the facilities but there was no Li Na.

    “When the discussion started in 2012, Li Na was an active player, at the top of the rankings and everybody envisioned to see her playing on home soil. The story ended up being different, and that’s fine, that’s the way it is, and it was obviously a big motivation,” co-tournament director Fabrice Chouquet told Sport360 at the Wuhan Open last month.

    “Everybody knew that Li Na wasn’t going to play for another 10 years, so it’s also her legacy to have this event.”

    In a way, parallels can be drawn between Wuhan hosting this event, and Dubai staging an ATP tournament for the first time back in 1993. Just like Dubai wanted to place itself on the world sports map and gain recognition across the globe through international tennis, Wuhan is attempting to achieve the same today.

    “Having such a big event in Wuhan is a major development for the city. Through these sports events the city is growing its image, it’s more known around the world and tennis is a fantastic vehicle for that because you receive at this level of events an immediate worldwide exposure,” added Chouquet.

    “It’s putting Wuhan in the elite group of cities who are hosting a major sports event and a major tennis event. The other Premier 5 events are cities like, either Toronto or Montreal, Rome, Doha or Dubai and Cincinnati, so they’re major cities in North America, Europe or the Middle East. So Wuhan gets into that club.

    “It’s a branding exercise for the city and it’s a way to develop and get a new status within China as well. When you compare it with Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, all these cities that have significant status, Wuhan wants to raise its status to belong to that club as well.”

    It is understandable that Wuhan still has a long way to go when it comes to attracting a big live audience. The tournament has only been around for three years, the stadium is located in a developing area that is far from the city centre, with the metro yet to reach it, and locals don’t necessarily have the tennis culture embedded in their DNA.

    Chouquet admits that attendance is one of the biggest challenges the tournament faces.

    “An event of that level with the size of the centre court that we have, we are very objective. We know that we’re not going to fill 15,000 seats at every session of this tournament, that would be unrealistic, it’s impossible. So we want to set reasonable objectives that we can achieve. We want to build the fanbase and it takes time,” said the Frenchman.

    WTA CEO Steve Simon agrees that increasing the number of spectators in events like the Wuhan Open is tough.

    “I think the education that we’re working with them on is getting them to take this from just a competition to it becoming an event and learning to not just copy what’s being done somewhere else – big stadium, big players, all of that – you’ve got to create the environment that the fans want to come.

    “Many of these fans aren’t familiar with tennis, so we need to create all of the activities and experiences around the event that will bring them to it.”

    For the time being, how much does the image of empty seats broadcast on TV hurt the WTA?

    “Empty seats are never good. It’s a challenge every week because there’s many times where the event is actually very well-attended but they’re everywhere else out on the grounds, it’s the nature of tennis. It’s an ongoing issue that we have for sure,” said Simon.

    “It’s not going away tomorrow, and with the exception of only a few events, I see a lot of empty seats and it isn’t a true reflection of what the attendance is as well. It’s something we have to figure out how to deal with. Some of it may be working with television and saying ‘okay, if the stadium is empty, why are you going to the high shot? Keep it tight on court, watch the tennis. Why are you going and showing me the beauty shot?’.”

    Besides attendance, Chouquet says one of the main challenges moving forward would be to attract more international partners. With such a massive investment made into new events, breaking even, let alone making a profit “will take a few years that’s for sure” he admits.

    “The city of Wuhan and this area of Optics Valley is a developing area, it’s like a new town sort of. In the city, there is construction all over the place, whether buildings, roads or public infrastructure. It’s a booming city, it’s just transforming, the slogan ‘Wuhan, different every day’ cannot be more true. The city has engaged into a programme of getting new infrastructure. So the city is investing in all these facilities and the return on investment will take a long time because the investment is massive,” he says.

    One thing the tournament has been keen on is developing tennis within Wuhan and spreading the culture of the sport in the process. Li Na sparked a tennis revolution in China when she became a major champion and a quick look at the rankings shows there are four Chinese women in the top-100, 10 in the top-150, and 17 in the top-300.

    The Wuhan Open runs several community initiatives like an amateur City League Club, that engages 3,000 players in 20 Chinese cities, with the finals of the league taking place on-site during the tournament. They also hold a competition for university students, who also get to showcase their talent on the sidelines of the Wuhan Open.

    China’s top player at present, world No 28 Zhang Shuai, believes staging so many tournaments in her home country has helped her in many ways.

    “A few years ago, I always played qualies at big tournaments, we didn’t have the chance to play big tournaments at home,” said Zhang. “Now we’re so lucky to be able to get some wildcards, some young players have the chance to play big tournaments. They can watch great players play. Before, it was tough to get points and tough to improve our rankings. Now we have a lot of tournaments and we can play. There are a lot of people coming to watch. I feel very lucky I’m still on tour to see this happening.”

    With the WTA establishing itself strongly in the China marketplace, is the tour going to continue to expand in the region?

    “One of the things that’s important to me is not to over-saturate the market,” said Simon. “I don’t believe in piling on. We’ve had a lot of success but I wouldn’t see myself adding more events to this market unless we can see that the event would enhance the values and the investments that are already being made here.

    “I think that in all markets we could use more pathway events, in the development of talent for our future, investment in the future in developing markets, but not at the larger scale. So I want to respect the markets as well. But the balance to me is the key.”

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