Tournements that have gone

I was reading my WTA guide last night, looking at schedules in previous years.
Although I remembered certain tournemnets, I was surprised how many tournemnets were in the US compared to today.
Sure I thought, some of the smaller ones change here and their, but larger tournaments also have been axed, in large influential cities. Washington DC, New Orleans, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicargo and Houston are an example of these. Boca Raton, San Antonio Oakland were other large US tournement that went. The VS series had a rung of middle-lower tier events that are all gone; they include, Witcha, INdianopolis, Phoenix, Tampa, Little Rock, Alberquerie, Newport, Stratton Mountain & Nashville
Boston hosted a tournie in 98.
San Juan often held tournies
Their ae a lot moe Us ones, just don't have my book with me. They really dominated though
IN Asia, Singapore, Taipai and Hong Kong all hosted smaller events.
IN Europe, Athens, Geneva(European Open), Malmo Prague(surprsingly, as it is such a strong tennis nation) Sofia, Taranto, San marino, Essen, Hannover, Cardiff and French cities of Aix, Bayonne, Montpellier, Paris(smaller tournie after US Open) are no longer on the calender. A variety of Austrian clay court tournies played between Wimbledon and Us Open have also gone.
I think the curent group of tounries are fine, no probs, its a good idea to bring tennis to more nations, regions. I just thought it was interesting to see how tournaments have changed geographically quite dramatically.
I wonder if any tournements in the US will 'make a comeback'?
I certainly don't think its a good idea to have 3 tournements played in a week, so the intro of more tournies wouldn't be good.
A couple of changes that could be made would be to streamline regions-surfaces better, generally done well, but to group South american tournies together, include tashkent with Dubia and Doha would be great.
It would be better for all european indoor to be playd at the end of the year, (ie move paris) and make Antwerp a clay court event, play it the week before French and move madrid-strasbourg to another week in May.
The biggest suggestion would be to have 3 weeks between French Open and Wimbeldon. It is so much more sensible and fair. An extra week of grass court tennis for those specialists or/ and an extra week for players to have off. Newport could be re introduced and players could have a quick dash over the atlantic for a week!

Anyways, anyone miss a certain tournie, or have any ideas thoughts?

I miss Chicago and Indianapolis since I always went to them.

I miss Brighton, we were promised it would return to the Tour one day, sadly it's just a distant memory :(

It's a shame Brighton imploded. It was the first ever women's event in Europe to offer 100,000 US in prize money, not a big deal now, but a big step in getting women's tennis out of the States in the late 70's. After British girls were no longer doing well and the top women started to skip it Brighton was doomed.
Conchita's stunt of tanking a match to go to her coaches wedding
in 1994 (after getting a huge appearance fee) may have been the last straw:(

It's a real shame IMO that Dallas and Houston lost their events.
Dallas had record crowds in the glory days of Navratilova nad Evert, but even when they didn't show attendence was always good. The only way more events are coming back to the US is if they move the WTA finals back here.

Making Antwerp a clay court tournament and moving it before Roland Garros is not such a good idea I think. It's still very rainy in April/May so a lot of matches might be suspended or even worse, the tournament might get cancelled. :rolleyes:

Awww... look at the face the monkey made when josh caid the "c" word! ;)

I think its just that the tour has eveolved and USA isn't the pnly country that is willing to offer tournies i think its better now with the players travelling across the globe!

I really miss the Oklahoma City event. My grandparents live there, so I was able to go down and see it every year. I saw it every year from 1995-2001, and it seemed to get better each time. Last year, they had Monica and Jen in the final! Unfortunately the tournament relocated to Memphis this year. :(

I miss Hannover. My first visit there in 2000 was also my last one because the following year it moved to Dubai. :(

The arena was always crowded, but I think the bad TV-ratings were responsible for the change. Too bad. :(

Oklahoma had to be about the best tier 3 around-always good fields and great crowds. Now the women are just second fiddle to the men in Memphis. On principle they should stop all these co-sex events until promised equal pay and TV!

Josh-don't you think Antwerp would make a great site for the WTA finals?:)

A lot of the events got relocated. Chicago is now in Scottsdale, Stratton Mountain is in New Haven, Philadelphia is now in Antwerp, the old Mahwah event is the Paris indoors now, Oakland is in Stanford.

I wouldn't mind seeing some sort of elevation of Challenger level events to official tour status, such as the $75K and $50K events. Each week on the WTA schedule could then feature about 3 tourneys: a primary (Tier I or II), a lower Tier event (III or IV), and either a Tier V/former Challenger to round out the field. It could also be balanced out so that each week featured a tournament in the Americas, Europe, and Australasia (with the odd African event thrown in).

I agree with Rollo about the future tournament mergers. If they want the women with the men, pay them at least equal bucks, and give them at least equal TV exposure. And no more permanent Saturday finals. At the very least, alternate the men's and women's finals between Saturdays and Sundays.

Here's an idea: shared tournament slots. Much like the Canadian Open alternates between Toronto and Montreal. In the old days, the Scandanavian Championships had a rotation between 4 (?) countries. Why couldn't tour events do that today? Some places have trouble securing sponsorships/facilities on an annual basis. But they might be able to do it on a 2 or 3 or 4 year rotational basis. In a couple of cases, the 4th year could be reserved for the Olympics.

I really like the idea of more events in Africa, Asia, and South America. They should hire you on as WTA CEO Brian:)

Antwerp would make a great site to host the WTA finals but I wonder if it will be equally successful as the WTA tournament this year if Kim and Justine don't qualify or don't play.

I also thought Antwerp would be a great place to hold the championships, but,(as a question) if Kim and Justine didn't make it or lost early, would the corwds still be there?
Wasn't Antwerp played last year in May on clay the same wek as Rome last year?