WTA: Women’s tennis only fifth wheel on the car?

The season ending in Singapore without world number one Simona Halep is symptomatic for the question where the WTA wants to go in the coming year.

On the day when the eight players of the Women’s Tennis World Cup in Singapore were lining up for a glittering family picture, Simona Halep also had an appointment in the Southeast Asian city-state. Halep, the spirited Romanian centre court activist, received the keys for a new Porsche in the metropolis of millions – a gift for her outstanding annual performance, the reward for first place in the so-called “Race to Singapore”.

The stupid thing for the players’ union WTA and their final championship: Halep is only an inactive spectator in the title fight, because of a herniated disc she can not participate in the struggle for the last games, sets and victories. But the 27-year-old French Open winner will remain at the ranking summit, no matter what happens at the World Cup in the next few days: Their lead over the current runners-up, a certain Angelique Kerber (first group match against Kiki Bertens/Netherlands on Monday), is too big.

Halep’s absence is not the only flaw in these WTA finals, which take place at a strange moment for women’s tennis. The season in the industry has been exceptionally exciting, entertaining and often refreshingly unpredictable, not least documented by three new Grand Slam winners (Caroline Wozniacki at the Australian Open, Halep at the French Open, Naomi Osaka at the US Open). But at the same time, the WTA and its leading actresses are stubbornly in the mighty shadow of men’s tennis with its greats such as Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal.

The most stirring and far-reaching headlines for women’s tennis in 2018 came from a scandal, the bizarre black-out of Serena Williams in the New York Grand Slam final. The exciting and heated poker of the billions in the future of the Davis Cup, which took place before and after the US Open, was, however, revealing in many respects: It showed what sums of money can be moved in men’s tennis. And he showed how women’s tennis is marginalised by the ITF, because for a long time there was nothing at all to be heard about any projects or reforms, for example in the Fed Cup. Judy Murray, the mother and long-time coach of her son Andy, was brief: “It looks like women’s tennis is the fifth wheel on the car.”

The fact that the Australian Tennis Federation, in association with the male players’ union ATP, has pressed ahead this year and wants to install a new World Team Cup for men in January, already from 2020, fits the picture – because for this controversial competition the popular Hopman Cup has to give way to the start of the season, the unofficial Mixed World Championship of mixed doubles in Perth. The World Team Cup is to be played on the entire fifth continent for almost two weeks, a new edition of the format that once resided in Düsseldorf.

But what remains Down Under in preparation tournaments for the women, in the countdown to the Australian Open. “The WTA, with its weak top officials, is almost only on the sidelines,” says a top European women’s tennis trainer, “it has no real marketing idea for its product, it often only runs after the fast money. And, it seems, it has no influence on the movements and currents that change the tennis landscape.

The World Cup in Singapore seems almost symptomatic. Rarely in recent years has the arena been sold out, many visitors came out of pure curiosity, but did not even understand the rules of tennis. However, what was true and what counted were the guaranteed sums transferred to the WTA. And this also applies to the upcoming venue, the Chinese growth metropolis of Shenzhen. But in comparison to the ATP World Tour Finale in London, where 40,000 spectators are guests in the O2 Arena every day and create a goose-bump atmosphere, the women’s title fight seems almost inappropriately provincial. “Angelique Kerber just said she would love to play this top tournament again in Germany or elsewhere in Europe. But this will remain a utopia, not just for her, the current Wimbledon queen.