Kooyong Event Changes Hands

Written by: Bob Larson Tennis on 17th September 2013

Kooyong Event Changes Hands

epa03868608 Serbia's Novak Djokovic serves to Canadian tennis player Milos Raonic during the Davis Cup World Group semi final between Serbia and Canada in Belgrade, Serbia, 15 September 2013. EPA/SRDJAN SUKI |

Despite being an exhibition tournament with no ATP World Tour ranking points on offer, Melbourne’s Kooyong event is a classic.

Currently titled the AAMI Classic, it has long held an esteemed place in the calendar. Now long-time owner Colin Stubs has sold his interest in the event to IMG (International Management Group).

Stubs, aged 72, was a former tournament director of the Australian Open and closely connected with the move of the tournament from Kooyong to its’ current site at Melbourne Park in 1988. But he was asked by the Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club president Joe Devereux to maintain a tournament at the site and was involved for 25 years.

The global sports giant IMG can clearly see the tournament’s worth, with its traditional Channel 7 television coverage and a large corporate crowd. Brian Cooney, IMG’s Southern Hemisphere director of tennis and the new AAMI Classic tournament director, maintained the 2014 event would retain the same atmosphere and unique round-robin format.

However change is almost certain in upcoming years with the demands of players taking precedence. The plus for Kooyong is the courts are exactly the same as those at the Australian Open and players can easily practice at Melbourne Park but the downside is the financial lure from the Middle East where events such as Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala World Tennis Championships can offer far greater financial inducements .

Cooney admitted he was already thinking about committing the players to fewer matches and expanding the eight-man field: “We’ve already opened talks with Tennis Australia, but mid-September is too late to be contemplating changes for next January,” he said.

He dismissed any thoughts of including women players in the event as the WTA doesn’t allow its members to play a special event in the same city before a major championship.

IMG is also a partner of the Sydney International which is played in the same week as Kooyong’s event and Cooney elaborated that the tie-up would be helpful for sponsorship and TV schedules. “We don’t see it as a conflict and Tennis Australia doesn’t see it as a conflict,” he insisted.

Stubs had previously explored different ways to improve the tournament, such as lengthening it beyond four days or allowing retired players to compete.

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