Will World Team Tennis Save the Pro Season?
If Serena builds it, will they come?
“Ultimately I really cannot wait to return to New York and play,” Serena Williams, said as part of a USTA videoconference last week to formally announce plans for this year’s US Open, to be held in early September — sans fans and ultra-sanitized.
Serena has a reason to go for it: tying Margaret Court’s record 24 Grand Slam singles title record — and then smashing it. Some other pros are considering other options for their return to the courts — Serena’s coach Patrick Mouratoglou’s Ultimate Tennis Showdown — while others are not waiting for a Grand Slam, choosing to join up with the contest championed by Court’s arch-rival, Billie Jean King: World Team Tennis.
World Team Tennis (WTT), has had its fair share of ups-and-downs in its 45 years — including speculation that it might not last — but it could prove fans’ only sure thing for seeing live tennis for the rest of the 2020 season. WTT announced in late May that it would compress its 2020 season into a three-week event featuring nine teams and allowing up to 500 spectators per match starting July 12 at The Greenbrier, a posh, cloistered 700-room resort in West Virginia.
“We are excited to provide players with a real pro league and (The Greenbrier) is a great option to bring everyone together in one of the safest states regarding Covid-19,” said Carlos Silva, the CEO of WTT. “The players love WTT but this year it is even more important that we help to bring back sport and tennis along with limited fans.
“And, of course, to continue to support equality, something we have done for 45 years and something that is in the WTT DNA.”
Since Washington, D.C. venture capitalist Mark Ein purchased the majority stake of WTT from King in 2017 — and wrested sponsorship from pharmaceutical company, Mylan — he and co-owner, Fred Luddy, have aggressively expanded the team sport across the country to eight franchises for the 2019 season. Although Ein, the doting owner of the Washington Kastles, sold his stake in 2019 to focus on reviving D.C.’s CitiOpen, Luddy and Ein’s replacement Eric Davidson continued growth and added the Chicago Smash for 2020 putting well-regarded coach and community leader Kamau Murray at the helm.
Former WTT commissioner Ilana Kloss told ESPN it would be “tremendous for the players” if the WTT season goes forward. “At WTT we’ve always had to be nimble and adjust when there’s been either a need or an opportunity to respond to changes made by the ATP or WTA,” she added. “We’ve been problem solvers.”
While Kloss, the managing partner in Billie Jean King Enterprises, and King might have not been exceedingly happy about the all-male leadership team (and the removal of those 70s-funkadelic, tri-colored courts), they should be glad about the deals WTT has wrangled to broadcast both on the Tennis Channel and the CBS Sports Network, giving her team-tennis format invention some of the major TV play it long lacked.
Both should also be happy about the star-power and accessibility WTT has retained. For 2020, the League has signed Australian Open singles champion Sofia Kenin, 2017 US Open winner Sloane Stephens, and Mike Bryan and Bob Bryan, tennis’ all-time winningest doubles team. In addition, six-time Grand Slam champion and comeback queen Kim Clijsters will join U.S. Davis Cup captain Mardy Fish to play for the New York Empire.
One of the best things about World Team Tennis, in addition to the format — think shortened high-school or college team match — is its blend of retired players, current big names and up-and-comers. Kristie Ahn, currently №97 on the WTA and a former standout at Stanford, where she earned a degree in Science, Technology and Society, was finally convinced to sign up with the Las Vegas Rollers this year.
“I considered playing two years ago, but the traveling schedule was brutal and I wanted to play the WTA tournaments on the lead-up to the Open,” Ahn said from her home in New Jersey, adding that she has started a rigorous training routine since courts opened to the public two weeks ago. “Fans are a huge part of the reason why we play, as long as the precautions are taken — face masks, temperatures, sanitizer, all that — they give us a lot of joy.”
WTT has long attempted to expand into Europe, but it also might have some competition for dollars and TV rights in tennis-starved year from Mouratoglou’s boxing-style sendup of traditional tennis with match-wins based purely on acquired points. Adding those cliched lightning-bolt graphics, gritty tennis player faces and big gold letters, Mouratoglou has loaded up his league with the likes of Dominic Thiem, Stefanos Tsitsipas and Matteo Berrettini — the Italian scrapper who clawed his way to the 2019 U.S. Open semifinal, attributing it to the pasta of New York’s Via Della Pace. All players receive on-court coaching — many from guys wearing the signature “M” on their Nike shirts.
But will the players ken to nicknames like, The Virtuoso (Richard Gasquet), The Hammer (Berrettini) and The Torero (Feliciano Lopez), big-hair-band rock guitars between points and all the other gimmicks to go mano a mano in an empty arena? Part of the appeal of WTT is the team atmosphere, the camaraderie between players — something they don’t naturally acquire in a tournament locker-room — and the appeal of representing a locale, even if it’s not their own. (Florida would be over-represented if teams required hometown players.)
As Ahn said, “Sure, most of us haven’t made any money since March, but we are playing for something bigger than ourselves.
“For a lot of players, WTT is a bright spot — just to play tennis again. Vegas has a fun atmosphere, I am friends with Asia Muhammad and the Bryan brothers played for Stanford, too. So we will have some of the school spirit out there. I like our chances.”
