Waning local support; WTA 2025 yearend final
View(s):Out of the six player certainties for the 2025 WTA tour final, four are from the USA. Coco Gauff, Amanda Anisimova, Jessica Pegula and Madison Keys are USA citizens. Aryna Sabalenka and Iga Swiatek are the other two and are from Europe.
With two more weeks to go, WTA events in the Far East will decide the last two slots. WTA 2025 final event will begin on November 1 for eight days in Saudi Arabia. Strangely, development history of elites show complete skipping of junior development emphasis and going directly into open tours.
Most probably, the last two slots for the WTA final to make the total number players to eight will be from Jasmini Paolini, Mirra Andreeva, Ekaterina Alexandrova and Elena Rybakina. The next two weeks will decide this. When the event in Saudi Arabia finishes, professional WTA players will have six weeks of competition free life and return to the grind to be ready in the last week of December this year in Brisbane for the first event of the 2026 calendar. They take all the stress of living in one calendar year in good way to explain life of a professional player.
Selection criteria and Elites
Many countries have disbanded their association based junior development programme. Sri Lanka is one of them. It might surprise readers that USA Tennis Association never had development stream, yet provided the most into the elite professional ranking in the past six decades. The extended argument is, isolated junior development retard and reduce career performance phase. Sports being part of their economical spectrum, junior phase is not a specific need, but maturity is. For this, open stream is better suited.
If not for popularity of the game in USA, tennis would have not reached the popularity it enjoys today. Tennis has sustained itself nearly for over 200 years. From the 1850s, tennis evolved from royal houses of Europe through to democratic, communist, dictatorial, socialist, all continents open and restrictive countries. The exhibition of the game in most exciting manner is the goal of ATP and WTA. We, in the island, are yet to find the formula to go with them.
Promotional
From 1915, ITF functions as the development wing of tennis in well over 200 countries. After the appearance of ATP and WTA, ITF being forced lesser development and a questionable entity when it comes to player development.
Exhibition of a sport
As spectator sport, tennis of today is here to stay. WTA and ATP provide the widest spectatorship of the game today with all popular medias as partners. Beneficiary are in manufacturing, transport, hotel accommodation, clothing, footwear, medical, labour market, water related industries, sand mining, paving, maintenance, service, educational and allied skill development industries. Alienating support for sport will make local governments and the national government poorer.
Considering the issues surrounds us locally and globally survival of tennis along with other sports is commendable. Spontaneously, people in its management are taking the beating, working for their sport’s survival. Very few are winning here.
Money, the issue
In our island of recent local government wants lion’s share of the turnover. One institution billed three million a month for municipal facilitation. They see tennis development to be lucrative and money changing hands envious. Nothing to be envious and it is another support to a poor nation’s economic wellbeing.
Unfortunately past facilitation by government bodies toward junior development yet to yield the rainbow promised by associations. According to our selectors, our standard of tennis, regardless age group or otherwise, has hit all-time lowest. Regardless how well selected, thrashed outside the country in all age group events. Overseas tours are family picnic.
When one sees the whole spectrum, since sports became professional wealth accumulation incorporated into it. Players will have to earn for a lifetime. Many of the mechanics in the professional circuit tailor to lure big money.
Pete Sampras played great and made tennis very popular. One of the great success stories of USA sport. If at all, a defect he carried was his inability to exhibit ‘exaggerated emotion after victory and defeat’. Today players are coached to create it as an attraction for public conversation topic. All sports carry this now, if not media does not support it. It has money in exhibition of emotion. Coming to Sampras, he said if not for the money in tennis, “I’ll be tossing pizzas in New York”. He retired from tennis to be professional poker player. He frightened many great players prior to him in tennis and packed them away. Bjorn Borg, a Swede, was an ice-cold executor and Sampras, a terminator extra ordinaries. At their best nothing stood. It is our time and opportunity to use tennis development to our advantage. My advice to players, do not be attached and blame others. Be ready to sacrifice comfort and seeking local popularity.
–George Paldano, European and Asian competition player; Coach German Tennis Federation; National coach Brunei and Sri Lanka; Davis Cup, Federation Cup coach, coached ATP, WTA and ITF ranked players in Europe and Asia; WhatsApp +94775448880–