Asia, a new center for the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour

Having set up its Asia-Pacific headquarters in Beijing in July and by organizing the season-ending Sony Ericsson Championships in Doha, Qatar, next month, the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour considers Asia to be a new center for women's tennis and it will initiate a series of initiatives to further promote the sport in the region.

"We see Asia as a center for growth in women's tennis," said Kirsten Fisher, vice-president of sales and marketing, Asia Pacific, Sony Ericsson WTA Tour.

"We chose the China Open as one of the four premier mandatory events, which will have all of the top players competing, starting next year.

"The Sony Ericsson Championships will also be located in Doha for the next three years. So, definitely, a lot is happening in this region and it is our biggest region for growth," she said.

The Sony Ericsson WTA Tour is the world's largest premier professional sport for women with more than 2,000 players representing 90 nations competing for $70.8 million in prize money at the Tour's 60 events in 34 countries. More than 4.7 million people attended women's tennis events in 2007 with millions more watching events on television networks around the world.

For the first time, one of the world's top women's tennis events will be held in Beijing next year. Upgraded from the China Open, an annual tennis event in Beijing since 2004, it will be a nine-day tennis tournament featuring $4 million in prize money, equaling the men's ATP Masters Series event in Shanghai.

The event, which will be moved to the Olympic venue in the Olympic Green, will be mandatory for all players who qualify by ranking and will therefore host the best women's tennis players to ever compete in China.

Other mandatory women's stops will be in Madrid, Miami and Indian Wells, California.

Before next year, Asia will welcome a top-level season ending event in Doha from Nov 4 to 9. The world's top eight ranked women and four doubles teams will strive for $4.45-million in prize money there.

The singles field began taking shape during the summer hardcourt season. Jelena Jankovic and Ana Ivanovic were the first two to qualify, doing so at the end of July, Dinara Safina and Serena Williams followed during the second week of the US Open at the beginning of September, and Elena Dementieva was the fifth to join the eight-woman field after winning her first match in Tokyo in mid-September. Svetlana Kuznetsova became the sixth player to qualify earlier this month.

Vera Zvonareva and Venus Williams have filled out the remaining two spots.

Cara Black and Liezel Huber were the first to qualify for the doubles event, doing so just before the US Open in mid-August. Anabel Medina Garrigues and Virginia Ruano Pascual became the second team to qualify, doing so last week. This week the third and fourth berths were decided for, Kveta Peschke and Rennae Stubbs, and Katarina Srebotnik with Ai Sugiyama.

In order to prepare for the top event in Beijing and further promote tennis in China and the whole of Asia, Sony Ericsson WTA Tour opened its Asia-Pacific headquarters on July 9 this year.

Spearheaded by head of the Asia Pacific, Sony Ericsson WTA Tour, David Shoemaker, it is professional women's tennis' third global office after its main headquarters in St Petersburg, Florida, and its European office in London.

"It was a very easy decision for us (to have our office in Beijing). It's really part of a shared vision we had with the Beijing municipal government where we saw Beijing really becomes a world tennis capital," Shoemaker said.

"Starting in 2009 and for the long-term future, the China Open will become one of the biggest tennis events in the world. It's a part of our tennis road map. It's very important to have our Asia Pacific headquarters in the same city in which the biggest tennis event will be.

"Our top goal is to help the China Open and Chinese tennis fulfill its potential, that's the motivation for us to establish the office here in Beijing."

Tennis has become one of the most popular sports in China thanks to its quickly improving women's players. At the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, Li Ting and Sun Tiantian surprisingly took the gold medals, and Zheng Jie/Yan Zi won doubles titles at the Australian Open and Wimbledon in 2006. Zheng also made it to the singles' semifinal in June at the All England Club, the best singles result for any Chinese player at a Grand Slam.

The outstanding performance of those Chinese women players is another reason to attract Shoemaker's team.

"The second reason is that we see the long-term prospects for Chinese tennis and Chinese women's players to be so great," he said. "At the time we made the decision, nearly four Chinese women players were in the world's top 50 and they are continuing to rise up the ranks. We see that their future is so bright that we think it's a great part of our plan for the future to have our home for Asia Pacific in the center of development for talents from Asia."

Almost at the same time as opening the Beijing office, the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour is unveiling the largest advertising campaign in its history, with the "Looking For A Hero?" initiative, launched on the eve of Wimbledon.

As a global campaign, with a television, print and online presence, it aims to show tennis players who are amazing heroes on and off court. China's Zheng, Yan and Li Na are also involved in a TV advertisement.

"We want to promote not just current superstars, but also players from all over the world that are going to become superstars," Fisher said.

"The Chinese players have proved from their performances that they are going to be the next stars of women's tennis. So, we decided to use these Chinese players in our campaign."

"We want tennis to be a top five sport in China, as popular as table tennis and badminton," she said.

Several initiatives will support this goal, including customizing the Tour's new global marketing campaign, creating regional media partnerships, developing a Chinese-language website and supporting national grassroots development programs. The Tour will work closely with China Open Limited, the China Tennis Association and the Beijing municipal government.

"The Chinese tennis association is a very good partner and we will do a lot to promote the players that they developed," Shoemaker said. "Once they become professional tennis players on the world stage, we will help them to become even better professionals."

The other important role of the office is to grow the popularity of the sport in China.

"We are going to bring tennis to schools, to communities, and to shopping centers and parks," Shoemaker said. "It's not tennis just in the traditional sense, but also includes many fun activities. So, even if people never picked up a tennis racket before, when they see these activities, they may consider it fun and may stop to watch tennis matches or try to do it themselves next time."

A Chinese-version website will also be launched soon.

"It will be the first foreign language website for the Tour," Shoemaker said. "China has a large population interested in tennis and also a huge potential for tennis. We want to make the website a lot more user friendly. It will feature more stories about Chinese tennis players," he said.

(China Daily 10/31/2008 page24)