New Shenzhen Event Makes For Crowded Opening Week For The Tour

Written by: Staff on 24th September 2012

New Shenzhen Event Makes For Crowded Opening Week For The Tour |

During the first week of the season, the ATP holds tournaments Brisbane, Doha and Chennai – plus the Hopman Cup.

A new WTA tournament in Shenzhen, China, in 2013 will add even more competition for player fields during the first week of the season.

Shenzhen’s remarkable growth over the past 30 years has brought the city great prosperity. Practically a suburb, it is situated immediately north of Hong Kong, the city is China’s southern mainland financial centre, houses the headquarters of numerous high-tech companies and is one of the nation’s busiest container ports. The area became China’s first, and one of the most successful, Special Economic Zones.

While the IMG-owned tournament is an International Series event – the smallest tier on the WTA- there are already three other events scheduled for that time, including the Premier tournament in Brisbane, the longstanding Hopman Cup exhibition, and Auckland, which is also an International Series tournament.

Brisbane has already signed Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova for the upcoming tournament. The Hopman Cup has announced that it has snagged Venus Williams as well as Ana Ivanovic.

Brisbane can attract an unlimited number of top-10 players as it is a Premier-level tournament, while International events usually have a maximum of one top-10 player, unless they increase their prize money, which Shenzhen did to $500,000, which will allow it to recruit two top 10 players.

The $220,000 ASB Classic in Auckland has not chosen to do and there are concerned in New Zealand that an additional tournament might dilute its playing field too much.

The Chinese are also expected to put up a healthy amount of appearance fees to attract other players inside the top 30. Chinese players such as Li Na, Zheng Jie and Peng Shuai are almost surely to be asked to play at home. Li is represented by IMG, which also represents a number of other good players.

All three tournaments have 32 draws and if Hopman Cup is added into the equation, that means that around 100 players will have chances to enter the main draw of singles event, which is good news when it comes to creating job opportunities for players, but not necessarily great news for tournaments if they can’t bring in enough players that fans recognize.

Karl Budge, the new tournament director for Auckland who replaced Richard Palmer, remains confident that his tournament can still attract a good field.

“I don’t think it will have a huge impact,” Budge told the New Zeeland Herald. “Playing there at that time, in winter and indoors, won’t help them acclimatize in the slightest. I expect they will take out two top 10s but I don’t see a huge chunk of players ranked 11 to 30 choosing China as their preparation for one of the biggest events of the year.

“Travel will be an issue and their appearance money budget will be large but it won’t be unlimited. They will throw money at the two top 10s but I don’t think they will have the money to go too aggressively at the next level.

“I genuinely think – and I hope I won’t be proven wrong – that players are thinking about Melbourne at that time and want to have the best possible preparation that they can. Getting three or four matches under their belt in this part of the world will be more important than packing a check and possibly not going to Australia feeling great.”

©Daily Tennis News Wire

Topics: Asian tennis news, Chinese tennis news, Hopman Cup 2012, Maria Sharapova, Serena Williams, Shenzhen tennis Open, Sports