The former Wimbledon semi-finalist meets the five-time Grand Slam champion at the net, at the end of a fiercely contested final. The large crowd applauds both players as Kirsten Flipkens wins the title, thanks to excellent clutch volleys late in the match in a decisive 6-4, 2-6, 10-7 victory over the legendary Martina Hingis. Flipkens joins four-time major winner Kim Clijsters and former world number 2 Anett Kontaveit in claiming the trophy, once sought by Grand Slam champions such as Martina Navratilova, Mary Pierce and Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario.
Welcome to the Luxembourg Ladies Tennis Masters, where some of the world’s best players compete in an exhibition event more serious than most in one of the smallest countries on the planet. At this year’s tournament, which concluded last Sunday, Hingis (now 44) and Flipkens (38) competed alongside 2008 French Open champion and former world number one Ana Ivanovic (46 years old); Flavia Pennetta, 2015 US Open champion (42 years old); former world number 4 Dominika Cibulkova (35 years old); Andrea Petkovic (37), former world number 9; former world No. 27 Laura Robson (30) and Magdalena Rybarikova (36), formerly world No. 17.
Running alongside the Luxembourg Ladies Tennis Masters, the Six Kings Slam in Saudi Arabia was even more headline-grabbing, with its $6m (£4.6m) prize for eventual winner Jannik Sinner and a star-studded line-up generating an event that didn’t feel like an exhibition . Nearly 3,000 miles from Riyadh, the same thing was happening in a duchy, with the tournament being broadcast on Sky Sports in Germany.
It’s not about invitations to Grand Slam tournaments like Roland Garros and Wimbledon, where players move at a fairly slow pace and trick-shot kings such as Mansour Bahrami grab the headlines, stretching the points with whimsical, good-hearted sadism instead of trying to win them over directly. In Luxembourg, former world number 5 Daniela Hantuchova was appointed by tournament organizers to carry out reconnaissance missions at events, including Grand Slam invitationals, to see who could still play good tennis.
“I know how the players behaved on the pitch, so it’s about who can add the most value on and off the pitch and help create the best atmosphere,” she says. All players present this year were invited to participate, and it was Ivanovic’s first event since she retired from the sport eight years ago – and she was watched by her husband Bastian Schweinsteiger, the former Germany and Bayern Munich midfielder. They still had to meet certain criteria: the event recruits at least four former players from the top 10, the other four not being lower than 50th rank.
Robson, the former British junior Wimbledon champion whose career was cut short by injuries, played her first singles match in six years in a 6-3, 6-2 loss to Hingis.
“They want people to try, to play a good game,” Robson said in a phone interview just after being “chopped” by her opponent. “Everyone was at the training grounds preparing for their matches. Maybe I wasn’t able to do as much as I would have liked, but I tried to train as much as possible.
“Everyone is trying to play well rather than just laughing and having fun.”
“It’s a real tournament,” said Hingis, who was speaking last week on a day off while sightseeing with her five-year-old daughter, Lia. The medieval castles of Luxembourg were very successful. “You have to go out there and be prepared. This is the only time I play singles.
Hingis does not recall playing singles competitively outside of this event since he retired from the sport in 2007.
Luxembourg does not have a massive tennis heritage, which is not surprising for a country whose population of around 675,000 places it just below the Solomon Islands in the world rankings. Its most famous players are Mandy Minella – who reached a career-high ranking of 66th and previously competed in this event – and Gilles Muller, a former Wimbledon and US Open quarter-finalist.
The Luxembourg Ladies Tennis Masters was born as an exhibition event in 1991 and became an exhibition event again three years ago. But from 1996 to 2021, it was an official WTA 250-level tournament, with an end-of-season slot inviting big-name players to take wildcards with the chance to accumulate points before the WTA Tour Finals . Clijsters has won it five times, including the first WTA title of her career at the age of 16 in 1999, while other past winners include Ivanovic, Venus Williams and Jennifer Capriati.
The tournament was then known for its original and intimate character, with only a few courts and a roof so low that the ball often hit it during play.
Today, the Masters version is played in an even smaller venue, the Coque, with a capacity of around 1,500 seats. The tournament was sold out for most of the tournament, which ran from Thursday October 17 until the final the following Sunday.
Like the Six Kings Slam, the event is designed to spark the host country’s interest in tourism and investment – without tarnishing a heavily criticized human rights record. The Luxembourg state is its main funder, offering prize money of €5,000 (£4,165) to beaten quarter-finalists, €10,000 (£8,330) to semi-finalists, €20,000 ( £16,661) to the runner-up and €50,000 (£16,661). 41,653) for the champion, as well as the money necessary to hold the event.
The tournament organizer, International Women’s Tennis Promotion (IWTP), claims to also “aim to promote international women’s tennis in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg”, but the group does nothing outside of this event. It is also difficult to quantify the extent to which the organization of the original event and this new version of the Masters has inspired generations of players in Luxembourg. The country’s tennis federation did not respond when asked for participation figures.
“There is a lot of interest in tennis from young people in Luxembourg,” tournament director Danielle Maas said in an interview last week. “We host tennis clinics during the event, and many students attend and have the opportunity to meet and talk to the players.”
The tournament’s other major sponsor is sports and entertainment agency Octagon, which represents three of the players involved – Hingis, Ivanovic and Cibulkova – as well as ambassador and recruiter Hantuchova. It benefits from the promotion of its own players, who also receive appearance fees that reach six figures (in euros) for the biggest names. Players are also chosen if they can help increase the commercial value of the event, for example by featuring it in valuable television or sponsorship markets, with Octagon handling recruitment.
When Maas, a tennis fanatic who has run the event since the beginning, evolved the 250 tournament into its current version, Octagon was instrumental in proposing Hantuchova as an ambassador. “Danielle saw an opportunity to offer something that no one had offered, which was a legendary event exclusively for women,” said Alastair Garland, senior vice president of Octagon Tennis in a telephone interview this week.
Hantuchova added: “It’s a great opportunity for young girls to come and watch the match, and we talk about how tennis has helped us in life. We also have a conference where we invite Luxembourg personalities, where we discuss how to move from one career to another.
Robson adds to that sentiment, touching on the other part of this event that makes it more than just another exhibition: “It’s all we have for veteran singles, it’s unique. »
Until 2021, the ATP Champions Tour provided a popular outlet for men’s tennis veterans of over 25 years. Like the Luxembourg tournament, it used entry criteria to guarantee a certain quality of tennis: only former world number 1s, Grand Slam finalists and members of Davis Cup winning teams could participate, either from aged 35, i.e. after two years of retirement. . The last edition of its end-of-season finale at the Royal Albert Hall in central London in 2021 was followed by a single season of competition held in 2022, which then gave way to a smaller legends event in Delray Beach , in Florida.
The WTA Tour hosted legendary doubles events at the WTA Tour Finals between 2014 and 2018, but has not scheduled further competitions. It promoted the Luxembourg Ladies Tennis Masters but is not officially affiliated with the tournament.
This is an important aspect of the picture, because unlike men, retirees women’s tennis the players have never participated in any veterans tour. “We always looked with envy at the ATP guys on the senior tour,” Hantuchova said. “We would have loved to be able to compete like that, but that’s why this event is so valuable.”
The lack of veteran events is notable, as retired tennis stars increasingly turn to off-court media and ambassador opportunities before playing more tennis in a new setting. The crowds in Luxembourg and the deal with Sky Sports in Germany suggest an appetite to see Hingis and Ivanovic again, and Octagon’s Garland is certainly convinced by these measures.
“I think there’s a huge opportunity,” he said. “There are Grand Slam winners and incredible athletes, some of whom are now mothers and are great exponents of the sport, who are underutilized.”
Other tennis figures seem to agree.
ATP Tour sources, who asked to remain anonymous to protect relationships, said the previously popular Champions Tour was currently under review with the aim of revamping it, and Laver Cup president, Tony Godsick, argued that unless sports legends become a coach or an expert, it is easy for them to become invisible. At the Laver Cup, it’s through being team captain or being present that fans reconnect with some of these players; in Luxembourg, it’s seeing them start up the noise again.
Tennis in Luxembourg also offers new fans a way to see the evolution of the sport up close. It’s a little slower and may seem a little old-fashioned, but seeing Flipkens frequently attack the net, or the variety and feel of Hingis, is a way to understand how much tennis can change in a relatively short period of time . And for all this seriousness at the heart of the event, the fact that it is still an exhibition offers something of its own.
Besides being able to compete again, one of the things players enjoy most about the event is the chance to get together and hang out.
“I just trained on Center Court and it’s like a living room, everyone is chatting,” Hantuchova said.
“Normally everyone just wants to go back and talk to their team, but we just talk about life and play tennis in between. It’s really cool. It’s like meeting up with old friends, but instead of meeting up over coffee, you do it with a racket in hand.
This article was originally published in Athletics.
Tennis, Women’s Tennis
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