Indian tennis calendar 2008

[sameerph]

FInally an article in TOI by questioning the action of the organisers by Prajawal Hegde.

From e-paper -

BANGALORE ATP

CANCELLED




Is Bangalore really unsafe?



Prajwal Hegde | TNN



Bangalore: The ATP’s decision to cancel the high-profile Bangalore Open due to security concerns has left Bangaloreans and followers of the game stunned.
The $400,000 event was scheduled to be held at the Karnataka State Lawn Tennis Association (KSLTA) courts from September 29 to October 5, but
the ATP, the governing body of men’s tennis, called off the Bangalore Open, after promoters of the event BIG Live raised security fears.
The security issue cropped up after a series of bomb blasts rocked Bangalore on July 25, leaving one dead. However, those blasts have not stopped the International Billiards and Snooker Federation or security-paranoid Cricket Australia from cancelling scheduled tournaments and tours.
The World Billiards Championship is slated to be held from September 1 to 10, while Ricky Ponting’s team start the four-Test series of India in Bangalore, where the first Test is scheduled to begin from October 9.
If the Karnataka State Billiards Association Hall and the Chinnaswamy stadium, a mere stone’s throw from the KSLTA, are safe for international sporting action, why isn’t the KSLTA?
Is Bangalore really unsafe to host an international sporting event? Or is there more to it than meets the eye? Could it be that the promoters failed to find a sponsor for the tournament and conveniently used the security factor to get away?
Several calls to BIG Live over the last few days were met with either ‘I’m not authorized to comment on this issue’ or ‘Ask the ATP.’
“We don’t comment on specifics concerning security,’’ Nicola Arzani, vice-president, media and marketing operations, said when TOI quizzed the ATP on the procedure it followed while suspending a tournament for security reasons. “The local promoter believed it to be a security issue and regrettably the ATP accepted his petition to suspend the 2008 event,’’ Arzani added.
Prior to suspending the tournament, the ATP had asked KSLTA secretary Sunder Raju his views on the security situation.
“I told them the security risk perception this time was no different than when we had other ATP and WTA tournaments here in the last seven years. The government and the police said they would do everything in their power to ensure a safe tournament,’’ Raju said.
In March, the elite Tier II WTA event, which boasted of a field that included American stars Venus and Serena Williams, went through without so much as a blip.
“The cancellation has hurt the image of Karnataka and Bangalore as also the game of tennis and the KSLTA,’’ the secretary said.

[prasen9]

Nice logic. Play the game of blaming each other and nobody knows what the heck happened here. You try to follow the chain, you will be going endlessly in circles.

[jaydeep]

Plot is thicken as AITA taking leverage of cancellation of Banglore ATP ... AITA banned private players to organise ATP or WTA event their own ... That menas henceforth Mahesh Bhupathi's Globosport will have to go through the AITA in future if they want to held any big tournament.

This action taken after AITA got to know that a private promoter, 'Big Live', wrote to the ATP that they were cancelling the proposed Bangalore Open due to security concerns in the city and Sunfeast Open has been cancelled by Globosport as they send e-mail to AITA telling that they sold out their sanction to some other party.

Here r Secretary General of AITA Anil Khanna's comments -
"The AITA Committee unanimously approved that henceforth AITA would not permit private entrepreneurs to take up any WTA or ATP events as their interest is only to make profits and in case they are unable to find sponsors, they are quite capable of putting the image of nation at risk and not honour the commitment of the nation to international events of such magnitude."

AITA bars private players to organise ATP/WTA tourney in India

Jaydeep

[jayakris]

WEll, I am not sure if AITAhas the legal teeth to ban people from organizing the events, if ATP decides to sanction the event. I remember a big struggle about 12 years back when the last "challenger" to the Khanna dynasty, PL Reddy, organized a challenger (or, tried to) by going directly to ATP while AITA claimed that they would not sanction the event .. I don't remember what transpired, but I think AITA got their way in the end - as they always seem to do .. I can't remember the whole details but what remains in my mind is a line from Krishna Bhupathi who blasted both RK Khanna and PL Reddy in the newspapers, saying "here are guys like Mahesh living out of a suitcase and trying to make a living, and we are having petty fights that are stopping important opportunities for our players".

Having said that, AITA is probably more of a powerful organization now, in ATP's and WTA's view, and I don't think they would easily agree to sanction an event in India without AITA's concurrence.

And I agree with AITA's logic that if they are not in the loop, commercial interests could do the kind of crazy things that happened this time. Unless we hear any other troublesome side angles, this is a good move from AITA.

Jay

[jaydeep]

Also interesting news is AITA managed to get Asian Championship from Uzbekistan ... It will be at Pune in December 2008.

Jaydeep

[jayakris]

"managed to get it" is probably not correct .. ATF might not have had any takers for this - the Australian Open decided not to give a WC for the winners next year.

I am a little pissed that AO was giving the wildcards and a good number of top asians were showing up at the Asian championships at Tashkent, unlike when the idea was started and it was held for a couple of years in India immeditely before that - and AITA wasted money then with nobody caring for it. Now it is back in India again, and again it looks like we will waste money with not even any of the top Indians playing it.

Would have been a great chance for Somdev to make the main draw of USO without playing qualies there, but one after another, his chances are all going away .. TERRIBLE.

Jay

[jaydeep]

"managed to get it" is probably not correct .. ATF might not have had any takers for this - the Australian Open decided not to give a WC for the inners next year.

Oops I wasn't knowing that, so my excitement remained for few hours ...

Then ur 'no-takers' logic is more logical ... I was planning to attend this tournamnt but now I m decided to skip this tournament ..

[jayakris]

I will be even more pi**ed if AITA now thinks of some goodies like a main draw WC to the Chennai Open for the Asian championship winner. That would be really crazy. Apparently, they mentioned a couple of other events like the Qatar Open or something for a WC to the winner. I don't think the top-350 players would care for that enough to show up at Pune. They can as well go playthe qualies for those events, rather than play 5 rounds to win the Asian championships. A grand slam wildcard was different. It looks like the Australian Open figured out that they were not getting anything much yet, by calling themselves the "grand slam of asia"

Jay

[sameerph]

It is quite unfortunate that AO has decided to stop Asian wild card . So, with not much incentive to play for except some prize money , the field is likely to be poor this time.

This is a detailed report from Sukhwat on decisions made by AITA -

AITA moves in to consolidate power

[Sandeep]

Well I think it is a poor move by AITA to not allow private organizers to conduct a tournament with out their invovlement. This is only (Bangalore ATP) one such bad experience so far, we have been conducting other ATP events and WTA tournaments and never have come accross this problem. Involvement of AITA means more steps to conduct a tournament which will become even more beauracratic! As such it is a pain to do anything in India (starting a business, organizing an event etc etc) involving 1000 steps and this move will only complicate things as there will be more clauses and conditions. May be they can take steps like banning Big live or as they mentioned deal this issue at home ministers level and take a leagal action against them but the freedom for private organizers to conduct a tournament should be as it is.

Jay, I am surprised that you are with AITA on this. Particularly becasue we were discussing about corporate involvement in sports and how they can make up for the inefficiency of our government in olympics thread.

[sameerph]

This is more on the issue from Sukhwant in DNA -

Bhupathi in a spot as AITA closes in

[jayakris]

Jay, I am surprised that you are with AITA on this. Particularly becasue we were discussing about corporate involvement in sports and how they can make up for the inefficiency of our government in olympics thread.

I am not really taking sides with AITA or anything. I simply want some checks and balance to avoid the kind of thing that happened with the Bangelore ATP. Just that I support corporate involvement and expect how that will transform our sports, does not mean that I want our institutions to disappear and be totally toothless, which is also a dangerous thing, and we saw evidence when some guys got away with spreading a canard to the world about one of out flagship cities.

Jay

[jayakris]

The classic AITA scheme that I have characterized as "keeping everybody a bit off-balance" was again in full swing yesterday ..

From Ruhi Batra's news item in the TOI ePaper (no link that I can find) -

Anil Khanna, the AITA secretary, had on Monday made it clear that one ATP and WTA Tour event are sufficient for a country like India and he will not go out of his way to organise another one.
“If the global body wants us to organise the Bangalore event and the Sunfeast Open, we would be delighted to do so but I’m not going to let Rs 12 crore of sponsors’ money go waste on events that I don’t deem necessary. Indian tennis doesn’t need more ATP or WTA tournaments. What it needs are more Challengers,’’ was Khanna’s pointed answer to the future of these events.
The AITA has written to the ATP and WTA on this issue.
“And please let it be known that I’m not gunning for somebody with a personal agenda. I have nothing against Globosport or Mahesh Bhupathi. In fact, I’m looking forward to working with Mahesh and his company,’’ he added, alluding to the rumours of a tiff between AITA and Bhupathi.
AITA, as Khanna pointed out, wants to address development issues first up, which may not be on top of the sponsors’ and promoters’ priority list.

I could have sworn that Anil Khanna would come out and make sure that he would keep a working relation with Mahesh and others, after doing the bit to establsh his authority a bit. That is his classic style [what Sukhwant calls as something that would put chANakya to shame!] ..

But Mahesh is no idiot either. He knows the game quite well himself. He speaks his mind but generally does not let personal differences to get in the way of getting things done. He has done an Anil Khanna himself, too! Checdk this out -

Bhupathi: AITA decision justified

“I can always understand why AITA secretary Anil Khanna got upset after what happened in Bangalore. He has every reason to do so. The Bangalore incident was ridiculous. As far we are concerned, we are looking forward to working with the AITA again,” Bhupathi told The Telegraph.

Well done, Hesh! .. Take that, chANakya!

Mahesh had mentioned how many players on the tour like Safin and Federer had gone and asked him about what was up with Bangalore and how he had to tell everybody that all is fine and that somebody was doing something to save face.

Jay

[mamta]

there is no wta tournament in india next year according to the 2009 wta calendar:

http://www.sonyericssonwtatour.com/1/ne ... entID=2582