Sport - Tennis

India is high on WTA list: Scott

— Photo: K. Bhagya Prakash

Larry Scott.

BANGALORE: Larry Scott, the former Touring Pro was a quintessential expert at the net, cracking down searing volleys and troubling the best on the men’s Tour, in his heyday. But Scott is going to be remembered now for his tremendous effort as the Chairman and CEO of the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour.

Ever since he took over that role in 2005 after a stint with ATP, he has brought about an exciting turnaround in the women’s game by engineering the largest-ever sponsorship deal with a six-year contract worth $88 million with Sony Ericsson and has successfully led its campaign for equal prize money.

Scott who is in town for the Bangalore Open, gave high marks to the organisers of the event and projected India as a major destination for WTA Tour.

“I am extremely pleased with the way this Tier II event is being run here and it is very important for India to have an event like this in the region, which will really push the game up. The facilities have been really good, especially the Hotel Leela Palace, where the players are being put up. It is world class”, said the WTA chief in a chat with `The Hindu.

Scott said WTA is moving into new areas. India, China and Middle East are three major destinations for us”. He added.

Scott said that women’s tennis had become the world’s largest-growing sport and given its quotient of glamour and style associated with players such as Maria Sharapova or the Williams sisters, the players have assumed iconic proportions. He also felt that the quality of women’s tennis is at an all-time high.

Scott said that WTA has been making a few changes to make the Tour better. We have started cutting down on events so that players get more rest and we have begun to allow on-court coaching. Another aspect we are truly concerned is safety. There are lot of young girls on Tour, and we started a programme in educating them about pitfalls on Tour and sanitising their surrounding by keeping out all undesirable elements.

“A criminal-record check for those tennis hangers-on are also being initiated. There are some misunderstandings on this issue, but once we educated the players, it should be acceptable”, said Scott.

Scott felt that the women’s game had stayed clean. “There is no gambling here and no drug abuse and what happened in Hingis’s case was an aberration. But we are determined to ensure, we stay ahead of all these and take the game forward”.

Scott doesn’t feel any pressure of being a man in a women’s world and said “I always believed that there was so much untapped talent in women’s tennis and I am happy to be of help”.

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