Open circus a pretentious sham
Open circus a pretentious sham 
By Leo Schlink
Former Australian Captain December 31, 2007
THE roads to the Australian Open are many and varied.
Flashy Asian exhibitions, Middle Eastern tournaments offering irresistible financial incentives and traditional New Zealand and Indian whistle stops all combine with a packed Australian Open series on the way to a common destination.
Melbourne Park is the southern hemisphere’s tennis mecca and, such has been its surging tournament growth in the past two years, the lead-up structure is under review.
As it should be.
As of Sunday night, Adelaide, a bountiful Australian tennis nursery over the past 30 years, will no longer have a tour event.
One of the most historic events in the world, and won by most of the sport’s luminaries through the decades, it will be dead as a South Australian entity.
Memories of Rod Laver, Bjorn Borg, John Newcombe, Jack Crawford and Lleyton Hewitt at The Drive will be precisely that. Memories.
Brisbane, a tennis wasteland for much of the past 20 years apart from the family-funded emergence of Pat Rafter, will take ownership of Adelaide’s financial corpse.
The tournament will then become part of a hybrid event with the women’s tournament now being contested at Royal Pines. It is a smart and pragmatic outcome for Tennis Australia; a tactical masterstroke by former Queensland premier Peter Beattie.
Naturally, there is no end of heartache for Memorial Drive diehards who, despite the poor financial condition of their tournament, will never reconcile the event’s transfer.
Especially when it has had to endure the selfishness of an overblown exhibition event in Perth that haughtily parades itself as legitimate.
Harry Hopman was an awesome Australian tennis figure, presiding over 15 Davis Cup victories in 20 years.
A strict disciplinarian, Hopman was the architect of the nation’s global rule, adding polish to a succession of champions from Frank Sedgman, Lew Hoad and Ken Rosewall to Laver, Roy Emerson and Margaret Court.
Mercifully, Hopman was not around as the Perth exhibition posthumously struck in his honour lurched into existence. Frankenstein with a racquet.
In its early years, it was tolerable enough. It was hit-and-giggle. Singles, doubles and mixed doubles. Harmless. Almost no one took it seriously.
Then it became pretentiously narcissistic. But player reverence did not move one iota when the International Tennis Federation climbed aboard the WA ego train.
And last week’s fiasco of Serena Williams opting out of the US’s first match, to be replaced by Meghann Shaughnessy, shows nothing has changed at the circus. It remains a joke. And it is time for it to go.
The AAMI Classic at Kooyong is an exhibition, too, but a quick look at its player entry - Roger Federer, Andy Roddick, Fernando Gonzalez and others - reveals a lasting relevance as a grand slam conditioner.
At Kooyong, no one talks in hushed tones of “Mr AAMI would have been so proud of this”.
Not so at Burswood, where control freaks continue to spout drivel over the supposed importance of the “deciding mixed-doubles rubber”. One can only imagine how Hoppy would feel.
Hopman was a busy man alive. He probably hasn’t stopped spinning in his grave since 1989, when the event started. Let’s give our greatest tennis coach something worthy to hang his hat on. Sack the sham now.
