Rumpus in Cancún: It was a crushing defeat that Dietloff von Arnim suffered in the election for president of the world tennis association ITF in the Mexican city. Only about one in four of the 436 people present at the ITF general meeting on Sunday voted in favor of the president of the German Tennis Federation (DTB), who had tried in vain for almost a year to profile himself as a strong opponent to the US incumbent David Haggerty .
Now that everything ended so soberingly, the question arises as to where von Arnim got his optimism from over the past few weeks. The DTB boss spoke to the FAZ, among others, about the “very positive response”, “great tailwind” and “good opportunities” and about not going into the race “as an outsider”.
The confidence on display, which amazed observers at the US Open in New York, among others, seems in retrospect like a whistle in the thicket of the international tennis scene. The DTB boss’s network is apparently not as densely woven as he believes; although he has a powerful starting position as president of the tennis association with the largest number of members in the world.
Many more years of muddling through
Now one can ask who the voting result speaks against above all: against the representatives of the national tennis associations, who have forgiven Haggerty for the poorly thought-out sale of the Davis Cup – something like the ITF’s silverware – and its fatal consequences, as well as his ponderous administration and have decided to muddle through for four more years. Or against von Arnim, whose election campaign seemed staid and whose demands – more unity, more investments, more innovations, more democracy – were not bold enough. A stronger challenger could have posed a threat to Haggerty.
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Apparently no one trusted von Arnim to solve the Davis Cup mess that Haggerty created as ITF president. The contract for the sale of the team competition to the investor group Kosmos, which promised three billion dollars over 25 years, was dissolved after three years because the concept failed, the halls often remained empty and the losses ran into the millions.
In order to somehow make ends meet, the ITF resorted to bank guarantees, which Kosmos, in turn, is resisting. Now the international sports court CAS is supposed to decide the dispute. The fact that von Arnim always emphasized that he didn’t know what could be done for the Davis Cup because he didn’t know the contracts was not a good argument for the choice.
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Not much more than picking up the pieces can be expected from Haggerty, who is entering his third and final term. The 66-year-old will hardly be able to counteract the loss of importance of the world association, which is primarily responsible for the team competitions Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup as well as the Olympic tennis tournament.
What happens in professional tennis is primarily determined by the four Grand Slam tournaments, which have joined together to form a community of interests and are constantly reporting new attendance and prize money records, as well as the ATP and WTA players’ associations. The world association ITF remains as weak as its old, new president.
