Tennis: Classic bids for event upgrade

Auckland Tennis officials have put the feelers out to upgrade the international women's event next year - but they are not holding their breath for a favourable response.

The ASB Classic, held in the first week of January, is classed as a Tier 4 tournament, with prize money of US$140,000 ($200,000).

Auckland Tennis are seeking an upgrade to Tier 3, which means stumping up a minimum US$170,000, plus forking out US$500,000 to the Women's Tennis Association.

The upside is that the WTA guarantees three top 20 players or one top 10 player in the field. Tier 4 events are simply told the WTA will make "best efforts" to get two in the top 50.

This year, the Classic's top seed was world No 26 American Amy Frazier. By contrast, all eight seeds at the Gold Coast tournament, in the same week and rated Tier 3, were inside the world's top 25.

The major stumbling block - apart from the WTA's reluctance to have two events of the same grading in the same part of the world at the same time - is the US$500,000.

However, Auckland Tennis operations manager Richard Palmer has said the Classic would not hold the WTA to its player guarantee if the organisation reduced its fee.

In effect, Auckland Tennis would back itself to attract higher ranking players without the WTA rule.

Palmer is waiting for a reply from the WTA but he's not too optimistic.

"I think it's very unlikely to happen, but you have to try, and we've tried to be a bit creative," he said, adding that if they got approval, other cities would put their hands up to operate a similar system.

The WTA has a long term policy in place, called Roadmap 2010, in which it plans to change the landscape of the women's game by that year. Women's tennis used to have five levels of tournament. Now Tier 5 has gone and there are concerns about what is planned for Tier 4 events.

"If they were to abolish Tier 4s, how many of those tournaments would be able to afford US$500,000? I'm sure they realise that would leave a big hole, where players ranked 50 down aren't going to have jobs to go to," Palmer added.

Palmer also asked the WTA to consider changing its no appearance fee rule and raised the problems posed by clashes with lucrative exhibition events.

"They're going up against Tour events so the Tour must have more say on players playing in exhibitions. The reality is they don't have the control," he said.