Both pro tennis tours are on ice because of the virus but aternative options are emerging for the starved tennis enthusiasts who clamor to see live pro tennis.
Harry Cicma’s women’s and men’s International Pro Tennis Series are being played for about two months straight in Saddlebrook in Tampa, Florida. The players are lower ranked in the ATP and WTA but the quality of tennis is pro level. Whitney Osuigwe, Mackie McDonald, Paulo Lorenzi, James Cerretani, have competed with an array of known and unknown players ranked outside the top 200.
Players are paid by the week to play sometimes two or even three matches a day. The series is livestreamed by www.espn3.com.
So far in two months, not one player has tested positive for any virus and most of the players are happy with the extended tournament.
Patrick Mouratoglou’s UTS is being played at his academy in France with bigger name players like Stefanos Tsitsipas, Berrettini, Corentin Moutet, Richard Gasquet. Mouratoglou’s is adding fake crowd applauses and he’s changed the scoring system. The event has drawn positive response.
Atlanta just staged a cool event matching veteran Americans vs #NEXTGEN Americans which was determined by a final set super tiebreaker which Tommy Paul won against Steve Johnson to give the #NEXTGEN squad (Fritz, Eubank, Tiafoe, Kevin King) the victory over Querrey, Isner, Johnson, Sandgren).
World Team Tennis is set to start an extended event at the Greenbriar in West Virginia.
Tennis Channel has resorted to showing classic matches, but it’s the same ones they always show. It’s hard to watch these “dead tennis” replays as Jean Kirschenbaum terms it, when the option is there to show old obscure forgotten matches such as… how about a teenaged Federer vs Agassi in Basel, teen Rafa vs Stepanek in Davis Cup, Djokovic vs Monfils first pro meeting at US Open. Most fans don’t know who won these matches and they would be interesting to watch especially if the commentators don’t tell you the winner before.
Another option for the Tennis Channel is to show livestream practices of players around the world. With camera technology it’s very easy to set up.
The ATP and WTA may be frozen at the moment, but there are plenty of options to generate live pro tennis content.
JohnnyTD · July 10, 2020 at 11:20 am
Those are cool events but i’m already waiting for Washington 😀 Fucsovics is going too.
Scoop Malinowski · July 10, 2020 at 12:00 pm
Considering all the negativity Djokovic, Isner and Atlanta got for staging events, why is the media not attacking Mark Ein for trying to stage Citi Open?
Scoop Malinowski · July 10, 2020 at 12:05 pm
Dont forget we still have Harry Cicma’s espn3.com mens and womens events daily. Check it out.
Scoop Malinowski · July 10, 2020 at 1:05 pm
great question by former MLB star and World Series Champ Aubrey Huff on twitter… Aubrey Huff
@aubrey_huff Notice how we haven’t seen any celebrities celebrating the arrest of #GhislaineMaxwell?
Sam · July 11, 2020 at 1:56 am
“why is the media not attacking Mark Ein for trying to stage Citi Open?”
This picture reveals the answer: 😉
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/former-vice-president-joe-biden-and-mark-ein-are-seen-at-news-photo/673572916
Apparently the Bidens are renting a house owned by Ein as well. .