Hi,
For the first time, I have been able to watch the year end championship coz I got cable tv, I was pretty excited about it, but it is so disheartening to see the sport which suppose to be on a rise all the time and have a Master so quiet. It is really embarrassing fot the official in my opinion to claim that women tennis is so popular, when only less than 50% of stadium is occupied. I am not sure what happen in New York, but I watch a few matches on tape and the atmosphere is so so much better than this. Although you can argue that this is only the first round, but I honestly have to say I lost interest in the match because the crowd is not reacting. I want to use an example of the match of Mauresmo and Testud, this is a match which is quite exciting, not becasue the quality, in fact the quality is not that great, but it has drama coz Amelie has a match point and wasted that, the crowd only react with just a few claps, this is really awful. Especially with such a large stadium,the noise get even smaller coz of the size of the stadium. Here is my question and suggestion and hope people can comment on that.
1: Whether it is in the interest of the WTA to move to Germany just because they have bigger prize money, when they fully knows that Germany tennis interest is in the decline following the absence of Steffi and Boris. I buy the fact that player will have two more weeks to rest, but won't it be better to put it stay in US but in a different venue or something, because US is the place where tennis nterest is great?
2: Even if it is better to stay in Germany, won't it be much better to have a smaller stadium, maybe 6000-7000 to make sure the stadium do fill up and the atmosphere would be so much energizing for the crowd and the TV audience. I mean it is obvious that they know it will not sellout as they said they only aim at 60% of the ticket being sold.
3: Won't it be better to maybe copy the ATP tour and maybe only invite top eight players to compete, this may subject to discussion in my opinion because there will be some good but marketable player being left out.
4: Back to the ticket sales thing, the atmosphere at night become much better (but still awful). Won't it be greater if all matches are play at night. There maybe some schedule problem, but I am sure player won't mind staying for half a week more, in fact this give them a lot more rest for the supposingly difficult matches.
5: I seriously think the abolition of best of five set in the final is not a good idea, coz it just make this year end tournament so ordinary, it seems like it is just a tournament with a few big names participate.
For the first time, I have been able to watch the year end championship coz I got cable tv, I was pretty excited about it, but it is so disheartening to see the sport which suppose to be on a rise all the time and have a Master so quiet. It is really embarrassing fot the official in my opinion to claim that women tennis is so popular, when only less than 50% of stadium is occupied. I am not sure what happen in New York, but I watch a few matches on tape and the atmosphere is so so much better than this. Although you can argue that this is only the first round, but I honestly have to say I lost interest in the match because the crowd is not reacting. I want to use an example of the match of Mauresmo and Testud, this is a match which is quite exciting, not becasue the quality, in fact the quality is not that great, but it has drama coz Amelie has a match point and wasted that, the crowd only react with just a few claps, this is really awful. Especially with such a large stadium,the noise get even smaller coz of the size of the stadium. Here is my question and suggestion and hope people can comment on that.
1: Whether it is in the interest of the WTA to move to Germany just because they have bigger prize money, when they fully knows that Germany tennis interest is in the decline following the absence of Steffi and Boris. I buy the fact that player will have two more weeks to rest, but won't it be better to put it stay in US but in a different venue or something, because US is the place where tennis nterest is great?
2: Even if it is better to stay in Germany, won't it be much better to have a smaller stadium, maybe 6000-7000 to make sure the stadium do fill up and the atmosphere would be so much energizing for the crowd and the TV audience. I mean it is obvious that they know it will not sellout as they said they only aim at 60% of the ticket being sold.
3: Won't it be better to maybe copy the ATP tour and maybe only invite top eight players to compete, this may subject to discussion in my opinion because there will be some good but marketable player being left out.
4: Back to the ticket sales thing, the atmosphere at night become much better (but still awful). Won't it be greater if all matches are play at night. There maybe some schedule problem, but I am sure player won't mind staying for half a week more, in fact this give them a lot more rest for the supposingly difficult matches.
5: I seriously think the abolition of best of five set in the final is not a good idea, coz it just make this year end tournament so ordinary, it seems like it is just a tournament with a few big names participate.