MONTREAL – The empty seats at the women’s Rogers Cup were not an illusion.
Organizers confirmed Monday that bad weather and going head-to-head with the London Olympics negatively affected the gate of a tournament that normally has plenty of sellouts.
Tournament director Eugene Lapierre said ticket sales for the week at Uniprix stadium were about 150,000, well below the record 174,406 at the 2006 tournament.
He said wet weather was the biggest factor in the decline.
”You can talk about the Olympics and maybe people stayed home to watch on TV, but for me, it’s mostly the weather,” Lapierre said before the Monday night final between Li Na and Petra Kvitova. “There’s nothing you can do about a rainy day. No one wants to go to the park, pure and simple.”
It rained every day of the tournament, although organizers got lucky that play was fit in between downpours so that only a handful of third-round matches had to be completed the following day. There were sections with only a few fans even for the semifinals on Sunday, which is a rare sight at the usually well-attended event.
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Lapierre said ticket sales also slowed when two star attractions, Maria Sharapova and top-seeded Victoria Azarenka, pulled out. Sharapova picked up a stomach bug, while Azarenka had a knee injury. Olympic champion Seerna Williams was also missing.
He said tickets sales were about $10 million – just short of the $10.9 million goal, but still more money than they made in 2008 or 2010.
The tournament began and ended a day later than usual to accommodate the London Games. Tennis was held in the first week of the Olympics, so players had time to fly over for the start of the Rogers Cup.
It should be less of a factor when Rio de Janeiro plays host to the Games Aug. 5-21, 2016.
A tentative plan is for the Rogers Cup to begin July 25 that year, giving players nearly a full week to get to Brazil.
Instead of top stars, it was locals who made noise, as 18-year-old Wimbledon junior champion Eugenie Bouchard reached the second round before losing 6-4, 6-4 to Li and Aleksandra Wozniak became the first Canadian to reach the quarter-finals in 20 years.
”Eugenie has the kind of game where she will continue to improve,” he said. ”She attacks and she’s a winner. She wants more.
”(An official) went to congratulate her after her match with Li and she said ‘what are you congratulating me for, I lost?’ That shows the kind of player she is. I think we’ll see her move up the rankings.”
He said Wozniak looks to be in the same form when she reached No. 21 in world rankings in 2009 before enduring a succession of injuries.
Lapierre said the women’s Rogers Cup could be as big a draw as the men’s tournament with more Canadians among the world’s best and if a way could be found to get the world’s top women to show up.
The men’s Rogers Cup, which drew 213,760 in Montreal in 2011, regularly gets almost the entire top 20, while it seems every year some of the best women beg off the event.
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