Tennis Australia is in advanced talks about the introduction of a WTA Cup amid discontent from women’s players who feel they are playing second fiddle to the men this summer.
With the inaugural men’s ATP Cup monopolising prime courts at the Queensland Tennis Centre at the expense of the women’s Brisbane International, American Sloane Stephens labelled the situation as “girls to the side”.
Australian veteran Sam Stosur also vented her frustration, with group matches of the ATP Cup played on Pat Rafter Arena relegating women’s matches to outside courts.
With the Hopman Cup and popular Sydney International events also making way on the calendar for the new ATP Cup, Tiley conceded there will be some growing pains as TA tinkers with the lead in to the Australian Open.
“We’re excited about the future … this is a transformational and transitional year,” Tiley said.
“It’s transformational in that we introduced the ATP Cup, which we can see the success of (already), but the women’s version is still in the planning stages.
“The players and all of our stakeholders have known that it’s a transitional year.”
Tiley will meet Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk on Thursday to talk about the redevelopment of the Queensland Tennis Centre and the potential for a new show court to be built.
The TA chief wasn’t in a position to put a time frame on the introduction of a WTA Cup but he said talks with the WTA are well advanced.
“I spoke to the CEO (Steve Simon) this morning and we’re meeting in a couple of weeks … at the right time we’ll announce what we’ve got planned for the women,” he said.
“I’m excited for them because they’re keen … they’ve seen what’s happened on the men’s side.
“But it was not possible to do them at the same time because the planning for both was different.”