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Gold Flake tournament director pulls a dilly

On March 29, Gold Flake Open tournament director Brian Cooney gave a press conference. Some interesting excerpts:

Pete Sampras, who regained his No.1 spot this week from Carlos Moya, faces the prospect of losing it again to the latter, unless he chooses to play in the Gold Flake Open .. Moya is the top seed here and it would be enough if he reaches the semifinal here to regain the coveted rank... There are no other tournaments on hand, in view of Davis Cup during the first week of April .. Sampras' entry even at the last minute will not be a problem as wildcards will be decided only after spotting the qualifiers on April 3rd and 4th... Chennai has generated a lot of interest as the cutoff for it is 131 ATP points, just three short of a Grand Slam.... last year it was 189 points...

The above statements come as somewhat of a rude shock to Indian tennis fans.

For one thing, the basic premise, that the Gold Flake Open in Chennai is the only tournament next week, is wrong -- the Salem Open in Hong Kong and the Estoril Open in Portugal are also scheduled over the same period of time. In fact, next week is only one of nine weeks this year when there are more than two tournaments scheduled.

The statement about "only three spots below Grand Slams" is blatantly provocative -- the Gold Flake Open had the lowest cutoff of any tournament with over $400,000 prize money last year, and though 131 is better than 189, it's still one of the lowest cutoffs anywhere.

Most tournaments, have draws closing much above Grand Slams (which close between 105 and 115). This is a well known fact, and the reason is simply because there are only 32 spots in such tournaments, whereas Grand Slams have 128 berths!

So when Cooney says, "The Chennai Open has almost acquired the status of a Grand Slam as the cutoff for players is 131 ATP points," he is merely pulling a fast one.

Cooney in his magnanimity further adds: "Vinod Sridhar has obtained a wildcard for the qualifying rounds". Which means in effect that Shridhar will play for three weeks in a domestic circuit in order to try and make it to the actual tournament. What he forgets to mention is that though the tournament is being held in India, the wildcards for the main draw are going to unknown foreign players, who have been preferred to Indian Davis Cuppers. For instance, national championship runner up Nitin Kirtane still does not know if he is likely to get a wildcard for the qualifiers. Fazaluddin, now set to make his Davis Cup debut for India, is another such case in point.

The entire attempt is to hype a tournament -- which of course is the prerogative of the organisers. But since they are holding a tournament on Indian soil, and the money is being shelled out by Indian sponsors, the least we have the right to expect, surely, is that they show a bit of integrity, and thought towards India's own aspirants?

Everything else being equal, no one would complain if wildcards went to players of foreign origin, of proven quality. However, the logic of giving such backdoor entry to unknown entities, in preference to rising stars from the local firmament, beats us.

What is most aggravating is Cooney's presumption that such blatantly false statements will be swallowed whole by the locals, since it seems to indicate that in his estimation, the bulk of Indian tennis fans are wet behind the ears, completely new to tennis and thus, easily gullible.

Which, Mr Cooney, we are not.