1987 Wimbledon champions Pat Cash has expressed concern that complacency from Australian Open organisers and ugly scenes of violence may eventually see the season’s opening grand slam shifted to China.Whispers have become roars in the corridors of Melbourne Park that the powerful Asian nation wants to add a tennis grand slam to its burgeoning list of elite sporting events. “It would be appalling for one of the sport’s institutions to be uprooted and shifted to a country that started to become interested in tennis less than a decade ago,” Cash wrote in his The Times column.
The Victorian government reacted to the Chinese rumours by hastily announcing renovations to the 20 year old Melbourne precinct, as an obvious attempt to shore up its licence, which currently has an expiration date of 2016. Cash says a precedent was set in the mid-1980s, when Germany wanted to take Australia’s slam. The threat led to the Australian Open moving from the decrepit Kooyong to the current set-up in Melbourne’s CBD.
“Melbourne Park became the envy of tournament directors around the world with its sliding roof. However, that was 20 years ago.
“Now the players take the two roofs on the Rod Laver and Vodafone Arena’s as a given, and complain about the sub-standard locker rooms, the paucity of indoor practice courts and the fact that it can take half an hour to get through the crowds to the furthest extremities of the premises,” Cash said.
Bad publicity has surrounded this year’s event, with images of Victorian police spraying Greek fans with capsicum spray overshadowing a gripping first week of on-court action.
“Hooliganism has become a constant threat. Getting tickets for the outside courts is a simple, inexpensive business, and those who want to be violently xenophobic see the tennis as a perfect battleground.”
“Tennis does not need to have its image tarnished by stories that flash around the world of Melbourne’s hooligan problem.”
Cash also criticised the new Plexicushion courts, which have received a tepid reaction from the players.
“The Australian Open has also lost a lot of its individuality by getting rid of the Rebound Ace court surface and replacing it with Plexicushion,” Cash wrote. “The slow surfaces are almost a replica of the hard courts in New York,” Cash wrote in the British-based newspaper.
The world’s most populous nation currently hosts the end of season Masters Cup in Shanghai, with this years Beijing Olympics expected to provide a platform for China to explode as a sporting superpower.
“Any complacency by Tennis Australia could be fatal.”
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