The Sony Ericsson WTA Tour Roadmap 2010 Revealed

This morning Sony Ericsson WTA Tour CEO and Chairman Larry Scott held a major press conference at Miami’s Sony Ericsson Open to announce that the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour Board of Directors has voted to implement Roadmap 2010.

The press conference, which included world number one Justine Henin, was held to explain the new features of the Roadmap, including the decision to suspend top players who withdraw without legitimate injuries.

The transcripts will probably be released to the public in the next day or so, but I’d like to take a few minutes just to let all of you know about the basic points of the Roadmap and how it will affect players, tournaments, and fans.

Longer Off-Season
The season has been reduced to include a nine-week off season, compared to the current vacation time of just seven weeks. The Tour Championships have been changed to reflect the schedule accordingly. “The Tour Championships will end in October for the first time in a very, very long time,” said Scott.

Shorter Calendar
The calendar has been changed to only require the top players to compete at just ten events per season.

Changes to Tier Structure, including four Mandatory “Crown Jewel” Events
The Tour will be hosting four required events - the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami, Florida, the Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells, California, and two new events in Madrid and Beijing.

“These are the four events that will be mandatory play, so all the top players will play against each other,” added Scott. “They’ll have the highest level of prize money, over $4 million each, and like this event, this will be the premium level of the show.”

Twenty Premium Events
North America: Charleston, Cincinnati, Indian Wells, Los Angeles, Miami, Montreal/Toronto, New Haven, Stanford

Europe: Berlin, Eastbourne, Madrid, Moscow, Paris, Rome, Stuttgart

Asia Pacific/Middle East: Beijing, Doha, Dubai, Sydney, Tokyo

Increased Prize Money and Funds for Development
“We’re going to see record prize money on the Tour,” said Scott “There’s going to be unprecedented investment, not just in new facilities, we’ll have over $200 million in development in new facilities amongst these venues and other new venues on the Tour for 2009, including a new Olympic tennis stadium in Beijing, including the new Caja Mágica in Madrid and other facilities.”

Prize money will also go up 30 percent from 2008 to 2009, for a total of over $70 million in 2008.

Expansion into Asia
The Tour will be opening an office in Beijing in 2008 for their first Asia-Pacific headquarters.

Improved Ranking System
The new system will be based on 16 results and more directly linked to the Tour’s top events by awarding of “zero pointers” for any missed commitment tournament, Grand Slam or the Sony Ericsson Championships.

Player Suspensions
The Tour will be implementing player suspensions for top players that do not honor their Tour commitments. If a player does not have a legitimate injury and withdraws from one of her required events, she will be suspended for the next two premium tournaments. There will be a fair appeal system put into place.

Venus and Serena Williams’ refusal to compete at Indian Wells (now a “Crown Jewel” event)
“There will be no exceptions for individual player circumstances,” said Scott. “This is a system that’s designed for the future and hopefully long into the future, and it won’t be designed around any individual player. Having said that, I’m very sensitive to some of the concerns that Venus and Serena have had with Indian Wells. I’ve discussed this with both of them, and I think they understand that we can’t design a system around individual issues that players have.”

Scott did go on to say that he is “confident they’ll be playing” at Indian Wells in the future.

Madrid’s placement on the calendar
The exact calendar date has not been determined, but the ideal location according to Scott would be just prior to Roland Garros on clay.

The Possibility of a Combined ATP/WTA Tour Championship Event
“There’s no progress being made at the moment visávis a combined end of year event, which does not reflect any lack of desire,” said Scott. “We really share a collective vision that we would like to end the two seasons together. Where the difference is right now is we’ve been so laser focused on getting a healthier calendar for our players and shortening the season that our circuit is going to end at the end of October right now, and we’ve been balancing different challenges.”

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