The Cincinnati Tournament Almost Lost Masters Status

Written by: Staff on 13th August 2012

The Cincinnati Tournament Almost Lost Masters Status |

The Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati is now one of the world’s largest combined tournaments outside of the Grand Slams, but there was a time when the ATP was trying to reduce the number of mandatory Masters Series events from nine to seven or eight and the tournament almost found itself on the outside looking in. It was down to Cincinnati or the Rogers Cup in Toronto and Montreal before the ATP changed its mind.

“For a little while we were in direct competition with Canada. They were saying they only wanted one Masters Series event in the summer and that meant Canada and us,” said Bruce Flory, who was tournament director for 13 years, succeeding his father, Paul. “We lobbied and had to fight federations. You’re turning family against one another. We love the Canadian people but there was only one chair and we were fighting for it. Eventually it worked out.”

Flory, Phil Smith, Joanne Frazer and George McCabe were just enshrined into the Cincinnati Tennis Hall of Fame. Flory, Smith and Frazer were inducted as contributors, while McCabe was inducted as a senior player.

Smith worked in management at the tournament and Frazer was a long-time volunteer.

“Phil and I were in the trenches together for 15-20 years and he talked about all of the issues where the tournament could have been lost by being downgraded or what other cities could have done,” Flory said. “There were so many worries about it. ot could have gone and we wouldn’t have had it.

Afterwards it was like ‘Oh, no big deal’ but it’s like when you’re in school and you worry about a test. Afterwards you think it was no big deal but if you hadn’t put the work in into it you would have failed.”

Smith discussed how organized Frazer was and how after she stopped volunteering that the tournament desk (her assignment), her work had to be turned over to five new committees to assume her work.

The Western & Southern Open is now owned by the USTA and Octagon.

“There’s been this demarcation of the tournament going from totally locally controlled and ownership to the USTA ownership,” Smith said. Maybe it’s fitting that three of us who had a little bit to do with building it over the years went in together. “I would get two questions religiously for 22 years: A) What do you do the rest of the year? And, B) who’s going to be in the finals? I took the first one as a compliment because that means we made it look easy.”

©Daily Tennis News Wire

Topics: American tennis news, Cincinnati Open 2012, Cincinnati Tennis Hall of Fame, Sports, Tennis News, Usta, Western and Southern Open 2012