TENNIS – As the dried ice, bright lights and thumping music fade following the conclusion of this year’s Barclays ATP World Tour Finals at the O2, there are a couple of questions which currently remain unanswered. By Harry Wancke for Tennis Today
As the dried ice, bright lights and thumping music fade following the conclusion of this year’s Barclays ATP World Tour Finals at the O2, there are a couple of questions which currently remain unanswered.
One – will the event stay at the O2? and two – will the man who created it be moving on?
In its fifth of a seven year agreement between the ATP Tour and the O2 Arena, the championships, involving the best eight singles and eight best doubles pairs in the world, attracted another record crowd of 260,000 which adds up to an attendance total of over 1.25 million spectators in the years the Tour Finals have been staged in London.
From a commercial point of view, it has been a financial success and it would seem crazy to move it to any other country or venue.
However, some players are keen to see that happen, like Novak Djokovic, who successfully defended his title at this year’s event.
“The tournament is of the eight best players in the world. It is the tournament which is not fixed for one city or one country, it is in ATP’s hands to think about this,” he stated at the start of the event following Rafael Nadal’s comment that the surface should be varied from year to year so that clay court exponents stood a chance of overall victory.
Nadal, of course is ‘The King of Clay’, who has never won the event and this year’s final showed that he has some way to go to match his Serbian rival indoors.
Dokovic also points out that to continue to popularise the sport, the shop window should play its part – as it used to in its early days – by staging it in other cities for not more than three years in each venue.
“I know various players share the same opinion, because of the promotion of tennis,” he said, adding that the ATP should be looking into that.
The O2 agreement comes to an end after the 2015 championships and cities will no doubt be bidding for it over the coming months but there cannot be a better argument for it stay in London than the fact Britain’s capital is now synonymously associated with the Tour finals.
In addition, as mentioned, it has more than proven itself a commercial success.
And the man behind that success? Chris Kermode, who could well become the new president and executive chairman of the ATP Tour and if that does come about – an announcement is expected within the next week or so – he would be the first Briton to fill that post, previously occupied since 1990 by Mark Miles, Etienne de Villiers, Adam Helfant and Brad Drewett.
The vacancy became available when Brad Drewett died last May following an unsuccessful fight against cancer. A popular man, the ATP World Tour Trophy has been renamed the Brad Drewett trophy and, as many will have noticed, all the umpires and lines-people at this year’s event displayed, in memory of the man, a bold BD badge on their uniforms.
Kermode would be a more than a suitable replacement for apart from The Championships, Wimbledon, he runs the two biggest tennis events in Britain, the Tour Finals at the O2 and the Aegon Championships at Queen’s Club. Both vastly different affairs.
The former could be described as a ‘tennis festival’ while the latter is more of a garden party seeped in history and consequently appealing to the ‘traditional’ tennis follower.
Should the popular 48 year-old Kermode be chosen from the four-man shortlist currently being considered, it could prove an embarrassment to the Lawn Tennis Association, who allegedly, didn’t even consider him for the post of chief executive, a position which was subsequently filled by Tennis Canada’s Michael Downey.
Kermode came into tennis from the music world so one can understand the razzmatazz of the O2 and believes he learnt some valuable lessons in those early days, lessons he has been able to apply to his current role and turn the 18,000 seat O2 into ‘the biggest indoor tennis event in the world ever’.
Kermode, who competed at Challenger level, said: “The thing I find interesting is that I run two events in the same city but acknowledge they are very different venues. And how they are put on is very different. It’s what is applicable to the stage you’re on.
“With the finals I thought the 02 was primarily a music venue so let’s bring the elements of that show to tennis. Light and stage the arena in a different way. The lights on the stage – the court – and the audience in darkness.
“I fought for two sessions a day rather than one. It’s worked well. Two lots of 18,000 at £20 a ticket and half price for under-16s. Creates a huge opportunity to engage with an audience who would not normally go to a tennis event.
“It’s very easy to think ‘well that works at the 02, let’s try it at Queen’s, the music, lights etcetera’. It wouldn’t.”
He explained: “Queen’s was already an incredibly successful tournament and it was ‘how could I tweak it’. You’d be a fool to mess with the core element.
“With the 02 event I could make my mark. I was handed a blank piece of paper to set it up.Just a bit of responsibility? Yeh. A fantastic challenge and I’m so proud of how it has developed.”
One can only hope that if he does get the job he will vote to keep the ATP World Tour Finals at the O2 in London. That would certainly be the right answer.
