According to Inside Tennis, the L.A. Women’s Tennis Tournament has been sold by its controlling shareholder AEG after this year’s event failed to attract substantial interest or ticket sales. The event will move to the La Costa resort in San Diego next year.
This doesn’t surprise me as I attended a day session this year that saw the stadium court maybe filled with a hundred people tops. Of course Maria Sharapova, being the only real “star” of the event was the main attraction and put in night matches. But a late and ill-conceived marketing plan called “Save the Grunt” along with the lack of main sponsor, spelled the end for professional women’s tennis in L.A. Read my post here about that.
Since the men’s event in L.A. was also plagued by low attendance, is it possible that the days of professional tennis events in L.A. are coming to the end? The WTA tried having its end of year event here for a couple of years, but again, low attendance forced it to move to Madrid.
L.A. is a great place to play tennis year round but it’s obvious that, outside of die-hard fans, the city would rather support the Dodgers or Lakers than world class tennis.
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