LTA’s decision to launch new WTA event at Queens labelled ‘unacceptable’ by MPs
Queen's Club is best known for hosting the pre-Wimbledon men's tournament - Reuters/Peter Cziborra
The Lawn Tennis Association’s decision to create a new WTA event at Queen’s will create an “unacceptable” concentration of professional tennis in London at the expense of other cities, according to the chair of the Parliamentary tennis group.
Toby Perkins, the Labour MP for Chesterfield, told Telegraph Sport that audiences north of London will be short-changed next summer when Queen’s hosts a WTA 500 in the week before the more familiar men’s event known as the Cinch Championships.
Part of the trade-off for this reorganisation of the grass-court season involves the downgrading of the WTA 250 in Birmingham, which had previously occupied that week.
In 2025, Birmingham will have to make do with a combined male and female Challenger event, which sits on the tier below the ATP and WTA Tours.
“I welcome the fact that these changes will increase the profile of women’s tennis and I have no doubt that fans and players will look forward to the famous Queen’s Club courts hosting the world’s top women,” Perkins said.
“However, this is a further reduction in the already tiny amount of top-level tournament tennis that takes place north of London. This year, there will be no men’s ATP and two women’s WTA events north of London, and following this change there will be just one women’s tournament north of London.”
‘No other nation has such a concentration of top events in one city’
Perkins also cited last year’s Davis Cup qualifying matches in Manchester as an example of a successful event in a different location. Staged at the AO Arena, Great Britain’s successful drive towards the finals in Malaga attracted huge and passionate crowds. There is, however, no comparable outdoor venue in Manchester that could stage a grass-court event.
“I will continue to demand that the LTA explore ways to ensure that fans don’t always have to travel south to watch world-class tennis in the UK,” Perkins concluded. “There is no other major tennis nation that has such a concentration of its top events in one city and it isn’t acceptable here either.”
The only Tour-level event that will be staged north of London next summer is the Nottingham WTA 250 tournament, which will take place in the same week as the Cinch Championships (the slot previously occupied by Birmingham). The popular event at Eastbourne, staged in the week before Wimbledon, is also being downgraded from a WTA 500 to a 250, which will make it difficult to attract top players.
On Thursday, LTA events director Chris Pollard had explained the rationale for the new schedule. “We think the quality of the grass and facilities at an iconic London venue, will be attractive to women in the first week of the grass-court season,” he said.
“We wanted a significantly higher-profile start to the grass court season. And for the three weeks before Wimbledon to maximise visibility for tennis both in Britain and globally.”
Although Pollard did not mention this, there will also be significant economies of scale, as the costs of equipping Queen’s Club with public stands can now be recouped over two weeks rather than one.
The Cinch Championships, which have gone under various different names since their inception in 1885, have long been the only reliable money-spinner among the events run by the LTA.
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