Nottingham ATP to be replaced by Eastbourne ATP

Silver · County player

RE: Nottingham ATP to be replaced by Eastbourne ATP

helki · Futures qualifying

I read about this a few days ago when a newspaper leaked the story. I was hoping it wasn't true as at the time I couldn't find any report of it on the LTA site. Now it's out in the open and like many others who live north of Watford, I'm not best pleased. furious

I went to the Nottingham Open for the first time last year, the place was buzzing, the courts immaculate, the organisation spot on, from car parking, ticket purchasing, food outlets etc.The crowd, of all ages, mingled without any bother, even when queuing for the ladies' loo. wink

I was able to see Tim 'live' in one of his last matches and a fantastic doubles match between Goody and Hutch and Clément and Grosjean. All are memories to savour and after this year, not likely to be repeated. Still b***** the fans!

steven · Tennis legend

Even speaking as a southerner who could go to Eastbourne but not to Nottingham (though don't get me started on the silliness of all the top events in GB being crammed into about a month!), I think this is an appalling decision by the LTA, I'm not surprised if you're furious.

RedCabbage · Club Coach

I'm wondering what Nottingham has done to offend, tbh. It can't be a financial decision because they can hardly charge much more for Eastbourne since people won't be seeing more tennis. Two separate events generate twice as much income, surely?

Still, it's great for me and the elderly citizens of Eastbourne whose hips will break if they tried to make it as far as Wimbledon.

imoen · Admin: Moderator+Tennis Legend

There's no chance it has something to do with Gasquet's outburst against Nottingham last year is there?

I can't really see why they'd want to make the change. I'll reserve judgement on it till it actually happens but I do understand the frustration everyone has that all tennis is now in the South, that had slipped my mind before. (My British geography isn't great, I forgot Eastbourne was south

) What I really don't understand is why so many of the LTA decisions seem so totally off the mark, surely it doesn't take much common sense to realise that? Maybe it's tradition now, and you know you can't break traditions?

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

People really should stop generalising about Eastbourne - you'd be surprised by the fact the average age of the town in 41! It's not an old person's town you know!

In all honestly it does seem to be a slightly strange decision but the fact Eastbourne will be a combined event obviously had something to do with it and seeing as the Eastbourne event is popular it probably makes economic sense for the LTA to combine the events together.

It's a terrible decision for those Northern fans as it leaves them without any top class tennis events, and maybe none at all if they keep removing the challengers, but the Eastbourne event was never going to move so a joint event would only be held on the south coast.

However, seeing as I'm at Uni in Eastbourne I'm selfishly happy about this move as it means there's more top class tennis right on my doorstep.

mjd · Challenger qualifying

Perhaps Nottingham can put in a winning bid for the Birmingham WTA events from 2010, then Birmingham can put in a bid for Queens, then.......... biggrin

johnnylad · Tennis legend

I think Liverpool will stand a good chance of getting a tournament as it has held an unnofficial ATP/WTA event for the last 3-4 years attracting Youzhny, Ljubo, Nole, Spadea, Greg, THE SKUPSTER! Wozniacki, Harlkeroad etc.

So it has the infrastructure and the owner guy is loaded.

helki · Futures qualifying

Me again!

I've read today that the Surbiton Challenger will move to Nottingham, but there's no confirmation on the LtA site. Now I can see that going down well in the leafy suburbs.

steven · Tennis legend

What?! That's even worse, Surbiton is a great little event. Why can't they keep the old Nottingham Challenger?

steven · Tennis legend

imoen wrote:
Maybe it's tradition now, and you know you can't break traditions?

Ah yes, tradition, that 9-letter 4-letter-word! I assume you mean the bad tradition of always making unfathomable decisions?

john · Top national player

Roger Draper: "We are confident that the changes will help to re-energise the calendar and open up the sport to a new audience as well as offering a better experience for existing fans"

I don't understand how taking away an event from Nottingham can possibly attract a new audience. There is already an event in Eastbourne. All it is doing is closing to door to over 1/2 of the population who happen to live North of London!

steven · Tennis legend

I've been trying to work out what the LTA's new master plan might be and I think I might have got it ...

1) Everyone blames us when all the Brits lose early in home events
2) Hardly anybody notices when Brits play overseas (least of all the BBC)
3) So let's kill off as many UK tournaments as we can, then we won't get blamed for the Brits doing badly in them so much

Even better, they'll be able to change their name to the London (and south-east) Tennis Association, prior to implementing Phase 2 - turning into the Liquidate Tennis Association.

4) Don't give any more WCs to Brits at Wimby, Queen's or wherever
5) Instead, sell them off to the highest bidder.

Good for our chances of seeing Rob Dee at Wimby, but sadly Bethan pointed out that they probably wouldn't get away with selling Wimby WCs, so she cleverly suggests:

5a) Give the WCs to players from the next nation we are due to play in DC, especially if we've drawn them at home.

This policy could go hand in hand with the even more obvious 'strict disciplinary line' policy, i.e.

a) Give a public roasting to the teenage players who act like teenagers.
b) When that doesn't work, punish all players indiscriminately by slashing the number of home tournaments.
c) Punish all the fans too, by making them have to travel hundreds of miles to their nearest tournament.

Brilliant, as ever!

I live in hope that if we're scathing enough, one day someone from the LTA might decide to come and explain the real reason for the changes, i.e. the stroke of genius that we're missing.

-- Edited by steven at 18:55, 2008-04-10

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

The one reason I can think of for moving the event to Eastbourne is money - if the event is held in 1 place rather than 2 it costs them half as much money to run the event and so gives them extra money to put to better use somewhere else

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/tennis/article3716893.ece

Basically the article says that the LTA are losing £1.5 million a year in the 4 warm-up events so combining 2 of them makes sense as they shouldn't lose so much money (but the question of how they are losing so much money must be explored by someone)

It also says the money saved is going to be invested in clubs, coaching and juniors so maybe they are doing something to help the juniors.

If this does work and they find some extra money to fund trips abroad for our lower ranked players, would people rather want that to happen and more players have a chance to succeed or a tournament that loses money on their doorstep?

(p.s. not that this could be what the LTA are planning on doing - just a reasoned idea of potentially why this has been done)

steven · Tennis legend

ForeverDelayed wrote:
If this does work and they find some extra money to fund trips abroad for our lower ranked players, would people rather want that to happen and more players have a chance to succeed or a tournament that loses money on their doorstep?

(p.s. not that this could be what the LTA are planning on doing - just a reasoned idea of potentially why this has been done)

Yes, that would be worthwhile ... but it must take some real skill to manage to lose money on the Wimby warm-up tournaments, I had no idea they were doing that.