ATP doubles championship moved to Netherlands

ATP doubles championship moved to Netherlands

JAKARTA (JP): The ATP Tour has decided to move the World
Doubles Championship from Jakarta to Eindhoven, the Netherlands,
ending months of speculation over the existence of the tournament
here.

An announcement by the Association of Tennis Professionals
(ATP) Tour stated that the season-ending tournament, which
features eight world top teams in a round-robin format, will take
place as scheduled, during the week of Nov. 20 to Nov. 26, at the
6,000 seat Sportscentrum, UPI reported on Friday.

The men's tennis professionals body stated that the broken
broadcasting deal with local television station TPI, in late
July, was behind its decision. TPI dismissed its two-year
contract, worth US$1.75 million, with the ATP due to financial
shortcomings.

Dutch television station NOS will be the host broadcaster in
the Netherlands and Advantage International will manage the $1.3
million event. However, the ATP would not to go into details
about the length of the last minute contract.

A top official of the Indonesian Tennis Association, Eddy
Katimansah, said moving the tournament was a big loss to
Indonesia but the association could understand the difficult
situation that led the ATP to its decision.

"As far as we could, we tried to help the two parties find a
way out. Unfortunately, our efforts came to an end when we talked
about the business interest," Eddy said.

"We have no money and nobody was prepared to risk losing at
least $850,000 to keep the tournament going here," he added.

The ATP has yet to formally informed the Indonesian tennis
body. "Never mind, they have no responsibility to do that. It is
their tournament," Eddy said.

However, he denied that the contractual dispute would not
freeze the ATP's relationship with the Indonesian tennis
association. The ATP dropped a challenger tournament here due to
poor sponsorship two months ago.

Eddy sent letters to the association's chairman, Sarwono
Kusumaatmadja, and honorary chairman, Moerdiono, asking them to
intervene.

In response to Eddy's letter, Sarwono opted to hand off in
August, saying that grooming national tennis prodigies is the
most important program. Moerdiono let his secretary handle the
matter, but no solution was reached until last month.

Eddy said no further measures have been taken by the national
tennis body since then.

He blamed poor public turn-outs at tennis matches for causing
big companies to refuse sponsoring the event. "They prefer to
watch it on television. To make matters worse, doubles
competitions are less popular than singles," he said.

Both the ATP and TPI reportedly conceded a $1 million deficit
when the championship made its debut here last year. Neither
confirmed the financial losses total.

The ATP posted a consultant for the championship, Russell
Barlow, here shortly after the 1994 tournament. He conducted a
series of negotiations with prospective sponsors, only to find
TPI would make the deal. (amd)