ATP Trying to Rally Interest by Serving Its Youth

By LISA DILLMAN

Jan. 14, 2001 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

MELBOURNE, Australia —

Lleyton Hewitt showed up in the office. Magnus Norman appeared at home. Roger Federer wormed his way into the passenger seat of a green Honda.

If there was any doubt the lads from the ATP’s “New Balls Please” campaign were going to fade away after last year’s debut, well, that thought was immediately erased after not one, not two but three calendars arrived on the eve of the Australian Open.

(Mysteriously, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Mr. February, was missing from one of the calendars, leading to questions about the health of the Sybase Open at San Jose in February. Rest assured, February and young Juan Carlos appeared in the other two).

The calendar avalanche, coincidentally, preceded a startling development in Australia. Last week, Patrick Rafter put the Aussie public and tennis world on notice, saying retirement was inching closer and that this might be his final Australian Open.

Now, while this is not a Gretzky-Elway-Jordan type announcement, the potential Rafter departure effectively would leave two marquee male stars from the viewpoint of the U.S. public--29-year-old Pete Sampras and 30-year-old Andre Agassi.

Sampras, Agassi and Rafter are the three most recognizable players to the casual American sports fan at the local sports bar, the non-tennis junkie. They transcend the sport, leading to appearances with David Letterman or Jay Leno or photo shoots in glossy fashion magazines.

So, before Rafter disappears, leaving only a large pool of sweat, and Agassi and Sampras follow, basic introductions of other cast members to the American public are a necessity. This, the ATP has discovered, must be done well before Sampras and Agassi have left the arena for good.

“The thought behind it was we are going through a transition,” said Larry Scott, the ATP’s chief operating officer. “Trying to look ahead of the curve, we need to invest now in legitimate stars of the future, but not wanting to write off Pete and Andre, who certainly made a statement [with their season-ending performances in Lisbon] at the end of the year.

“In hindsight, we look a lot smarter than we are. It [the emergence of the youngsters] happened much quicker. The new guys signal a certain attitude and irreverence.”

Gustavo Kuerten of Brazil, ranked No. 1 in the world, may have two French Open titles, but he appears in Southern California only about once a year, playing Indian Wells. The same can be said for Marat Safin of Russia, reigning U.S. Open champion, though this year Kuerten and Safin have entered the tour event at UCLA in July.

Still, after the U.S. Open in September, tennis is barely a rumor in the United States, as the ATP moves to the Far East and indoors to Europe. Even the women have walked away--how about sprinted away?--after the Open now that the season-ending championship will be held in Germany instead of New York.

Sampras understands the motives of the marketing minds.

“That’s the future of the game--the Safins and Kuertens, the Ferreros, especially in the U.S., where a lot of the public really doesn’t know much about them because they are only in the States once a year,” he said.

“I think it’s good to start, but it is going to take time. People are used to seeing myself and Andre and some of the older guys; some new faces, people need to know them a little bit better.”

Still, Agassi vs. Sampras is virtually an automatic for the front page of a sports section or highlight package on “SportsCenter.” Then again, Sampras and Agassi have not played each other since Agassi’s compelling five-set semifinal victory here last year.

“Unless I’m playing or Andre is playing, and if we’re playing each other, that’s when people really follow it, but other than that, it’s a little bit of a struggle,” Sampras said.

Paul Annacone, the longtime coach of Sampras and former tour player, has watched the sport struggle to regain its footing in the United States.

“The tour has to find a new way,” he said. “Globally, it’s OK. In the United States, it’s a struggle. But I think there’s been trouble for a lot of years. When you had, the last 10 years, guys like Pete, Andre, Michael Chang, Todd Martin, Mal Washington, Jim Courier at the top of the game--talk about cultural diversity and personality diversity. You have those guys in the elite group and our country’s interest is still waning, there’s a serious problem.

“We totally screwed up. Now people are saying: ‘What are we going to do?’ I don’t look at it [the marketing] as a contrived advertising scheme. I look at is as: What are we going to do? What we can do is really talk about those guys. It’s an interesting, enlightened way to get some new faces out there. Now those guys just have to win.”

All one has to do is to look at the career of Anna Kournikova to realize that, while all the marketing men in the world can help put a player together, it doesn’t guarantee a Grand Slam singles title. Or, any titles, in Kournikova’s case.

What happened on the women’s side after an early marketing blitz is worth noting. The WTA made a big push to promote its youngsters in the spring and winter of 1998. Instead, one veteran, Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, beat another veteran, Monica Seles, to win her third French Open title, nine years after her first Roland Garros championship.

Less than a month later, 29-year-old Jana Novotna held it together to win Wimbledon. Her opponent? Thirty-year-old Nathalie Tauziat.

The men are taking a slightly different approach, marketing a broader range of players. Of the athletes featured in the New Balls Please calendar, two have won Grand Slam singles titles, Kuerten and Safin. Norman reached the French Open final last year and Mark Philippoussis (injured and out of the Australian Open) was a U.S. Open finalist in 1998.

The two teens in the group are the 19-year-olds, Hewitt and Federer. Hewitt, who lost to Sampras in the U.S. Open semifinals last year, is coming into the Australian Open off a singles title in Sydney. Federer, expected to play a leading role against the United States in the first round of Davis Cup at Basel, Switzerland, is the youngest of the group, turning 20 in August.

“Even for us, for me, it is interesting, the New Balls campaign,” Safin said. “It just promotes the younger players because [the public knows] Andre, Pete and that’s it.”

But, as for the suggestion that the men are following the marketing lead of the women . . .

“Don’t mix WTA and ATP, please, is completely different story,” Safin said. “It is completely different story because it’s another business.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

AUSTRALIAN OPEN

The first grand slam event of the year is today through Jan. 28 at Melbourne Park:

FACTS

-- TV: Coverage begins tonight at 8 on ESPN2 and will continue live throughout. ESPN will have same-day coverage each weekday, today through Friday and Jan. 22-26 and live coverage of the women’s final Friday, Jan. 26 (6:30 p.m.) and the men’s final on Saturday, Jan. 27 (7 p.m.).

-- DEFENDING CHAMPIONS: Men, Andre Agassi; Women, Lindsay Davenport.

-- PRIZE MONEY: The event joins the U.S. Open in giving equal prize money to the men and women. Winners of the men’s and women’s singles titles each will earn $450,000. The total tournament prize-money pool is $7.5 million, an 11.5% increase from 2000.

SEEDINGS

MEN

1. Gustavo Kuerten, Brazil

2. Marat Safin, Russia

3. Pete Sampras, U.S.

4. Magnus Norman, Sweden

5. Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Russia

6. Andre Agassi, U.S.

7. Lleyton Hewitt, Australia

8. Tim Henman, Britain

9. Juan Carlos Ferrero, Spain

10. Wayne Ferreira, S. Africa