Monday, Feb 20, 2017

Dubai: A top women’s tennis official says the game is prepared for life after the Williams sisters.

Steve Simon, who took over as the CEO of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) in 2015, hailed the current healthy state of women’s tennis, emphasising that a new crop of players is capable of taking the sport even further.

“We have something great happening in women’s tennis at the moment. Of course, we have the legacy of the Williams sisters [Serena and Venus]. They have been the leaders of the women’s game and it has been pretty special to have these two tremendous athletes around who will go down in the discussion as to being the best-ever due to how they evolved the game. They’ve got some tremendous accomplishments that they are very proud of, and we are certainly very proud of,” Simon told Gulf News on the sidelines of the ongoing Dubai Tennis Championships.

“But when you also look at the rest of our product, we have tremendous depth right now and that is exciting to see. [Angelique] Kerber has come through, [Karolina] Pliskova has come through, and then there is Simona Halep who has some great opportunities ahead of her. There is a lot of excitement coming through.

He said the WTA wanted to continue building a platform to profile, not just the great athletes, but also others beyond them.

“And that is what we will need to take the sport forward. That will help us continue pushing and steering the sport,” he added.

Before taking over the reins at WTA, Simon was the tournament director and COO of the BNP Paribas Open Indian Wells, a tournament that he oversaw since 2004.

One of his accomplishments was making this weeklong combined event the most attended WTA and ATP World Tour tennis tournament in the world.

“It is always hard to predict success. But I think we are heading towards a very positive future. I love the product that’s coming up. We have some amazingly talented players, but more importantly, some amazing women personalities coming through. I believe these strong personalities are going to come out and be something very, very special in a while for tennis,” Simon predicted.

One of Simon’s pet concepts over the years has been giving each one — be it the players, sponsors, fans, media or the organisers — a careful listening ear so that the end product can improve. And foremost among these is fan engagement.

“I think fan engagement is a critical element of the sport and it’s about the experience that the fan has attending the event. It’s obviously the foundation of the competition that happens on the court, the quality of that competition for which we are very fortunate as our athletes put out a very high level of play. But it is also about what else goes around the actual competition as an experience on the sides,” Simon said.

“Listening is critical as we need to understand the perspective of everybody concerned. We need to understand the perspective of the fan, of the athlete, of the sponsors, of the media and the team that works the event. We take all of these varied perspectives and make some balanced decisions that will allow you to create something better,” he said.

By Alaric Gomes Senior Reporter

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