The Garden Tennis Affiliation’s determination to create a brand new WTA occasion at Queen’s will create an “unacceptable” focus {of professional} tennis in London on the expense of different cities, in response to the chair of the Parliamentary tennis group.
Toby Perkins, the Labour MP for Chesterfield, informed Telegraph Sport that audiences north of London shall be short-changed subsequent summer time when Queen’s hosts a WTA 500 within the week earlier than the extra acquainted males’s occasion often called the Cinch Championships.
A part of the trade-off for this reorganisation of the grass-court season includes the downgrading of the WTA 250 in Birmingham, which had beforehand occupied that week.
In 2025, Birmingham should make do with a mixed female and male Challenger occasion, which sits on the tier under the ATP and WTA Excursions.
“I welcome the truth that these adjustments will improve the profile of girls’s tennis and I’ve little doubt that followers and gamers will look ahead to the well-known Queen’s Membership courts internet hosting the world’s high girls,” Perkins stated.
“Nonetheless, it is a additional discount within the already tiny quantity of top-level event tennis that takes place north of London. This yr, there shall be no males’s ATP and two girls’s WTA occasions north of London, and following this alteration there shall be only one girls’s event north of London.”
‘No different nation has such a focus of high occasions in a single metropolis’
Perkins additionally cited final yr’s Davis Cup qualifying matches in Manchester for instance of a profitable occasion in a special location. Staged on the AO Enviornment, Nice Britain’s profitable drive in the direction of the finals in Malaga attracted big and passionate crowds. There may be, nevertheless, no comparable out of doors venue in Manchester that would stage a grass-court occasion.
“I’ll proceed to demand that the LTA discover methods to make sure that followers don’t at all times need to journey south to observe world-class tennis within the UK,” Perkins concluded. “There isn’t a different main tennis nation that has such a focus of its high occasions in a single metropolis and it isn’t acceptable right here both.”
The one Tour-level occasion that shall be staged north of London subsequent summer time is the Nottingham WTA 250 event, which can happen in the identical week because the Cinch Championships (the slot beforehand occupied by Birmingham). The favored occasion at Eastbourne, staged within the week earlier than Wimbledon, can also be being downgraded from a WTA 500 to a 250, which can make it tough to draw high gamers.
On Thursday, LTA occasions director Chris Pollard had defined the rationale for the brand new schedule. “We predict the standard of the grass and amenities at an iconic London venue, shall be enticing to girls within the first week of the grass-court season,” he stated.
“We wished a considerably higher-profile begin to the grass court docket season. And for the three weeks earlier than Wimbledon to maximise visibility for tennis each in Britain and globally.”
Though Pollard didn’t point out this, there may even be important economies of scale, as the prices of equipping Queen’s Membership with public stands can now be recouped over two weeks somewhat than one.
The Cinch Championships, which have gone beneath numerous completely different names since their inception in 1885, have lengthy been the one dependable money-spinner among the many occasions run by the LTA.
