Wednesday October 14, 2020
While the tennis men are playing two tournaments in Cologne and are looking forward to a packed autumn, many women are forced to go on vacation. The organizers of the WTA tour are under criticism. The players sense an injustice.
When Laura Siegemund looks at the tournament calendar for the rest of the year, one darn word catches her eye again and again: “canceled”. While the male colleagues around Alexander Zverev are currently kicking off a packed autumn tennis season in Cologne, the women are forced to put their feet up and can plan their vacation in advance. “It’s pretty meager what’s on offer,” complained Siegemund.
The fact that there are huge gaps in the calendar of the women’s tour WTA due to the corona pandemic and that substitute tournaments are only sparse in contrast to the men is not so wild for Siegemund at first. Germany’s strongest player in form uses the break to protect her ailing back. But elsewhere, the criticism of the WTA is all the louder. “It sucks that the season is already over for us,” said US-American Sofia Kenin after the lost final of the French Open: “I really wish there were more tournaments.”
And Julia Görges was amazed after her departure in Paris: “Our calendar is already quite bare.” Two smaller tournaments are still on the agenda. In the coming week the women will be playing in Ostrava in the Czech Republic, and a tournament was organized in Linz at short notice from November 9th. But this is no comparison to the men’s tour ATP: Although it returned from the corona break two weeks later, it still offers ten tournaments until the end of the season, including the Masters in Paris and the ATP Finals.
“Unfortunately reacted too slowly”
The WTA would have had a chance and enough time for a high-quality replacement after the lucrative Asia tour including the season finale in Shenzhen was completely canceled in July. “That is also a mystery to me. One or two tournaments would have been possible in Germany”, said Siegemund, underscoring a statement by Barbara Rittner, who is the tournament director of the two men’s tournaments in Cologne (until October 25) .
“We got in touch with the WTA Tour because there are also a lot of deadlines for the women,” said Rittner recently in the “Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger”: “But unfortunately she reacted too slowly.” The ATP took advantage of this and took over both tournaments – instead of Angelique Kerber and Görges, there is twice the amount of Zverev in Cologne.
Siegemund, who last won the doubles title at the US Open and only failed in the quarter-finals of the classic Paris, believes that something will change in the short term in the unsatisfactory situation, but not. “Both we players and the tournament organizers need time in advance to plan and prepare for a tournament,” said the Swabian. The communication of the WTA also appears to be in need of improvement. “I explicitly asked again several times, but received no new information,” said Siegemund: “We are presented with the tournament schedule and are informed. The reasons why such a hole occurs and we are virtually jobless are not always discussed.”
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