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)