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LOS ANGELES -- The women's pro tennis tour is in talks to shorten its 11-month schedule by a week in 2006 and by two weeks in 2007 in response to years of player complaints about the season being too long.
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"We are not far away from announcing a shortened season," tour president and CEO Larry Scott said. "For the next few years, the direction I am going to be taking at this point in time is not to be expanding the number of events, but to be looking at what we have and see how we can get more value of it."
Scott didn't specify which of the 60 events in 31 countries might be trimmed.
The season officially ended Monday with the WTA Championships final. The 2004 season begins Jan. 5 in New Zealand, giving most players an eight-week break.
The WTA Championships suffered without the star power of Serena and Venus Williams to lure fans during its second of three years in Los Angeles. Scott announced the tournament will relocate in 2005, either to another American city, Europe or China.
"The initial strategy was this event should move from time to time," Scott said. "It is the crown jewel of the tour circuit. We have got different constituents in different parts of the world that need to be served. Being in L.A. is not the ideal time zone for our European television broadcast partners, as an example."
Scott's announcement during his "State of the Game" remarks caught Anschutz Entertainment Group officials by surprise. AEG owns Staples Center and is a co-promoter of the tournament.
"If that's their decision, then so be it," said Tim Leiweke, president of AEG. "I would have preferred it not come out the way it came out. I would have preferred a little notice here.
"But they've got to fix tennis because eventually what they're going to do is they're going to drive people like us out because this is not a way to run a business."
"It's frustrating," said tournament director John Arrix.
The tournament struggled in 2002, its first year in Los Angeles after a year in Germany and two successful decades in New York. Attendance was so sparse, organizers scrapped day sessions this year, changed the format from single-elimination to round-robin and reduced the field from 16 players to eight to attract more fans.
The marketing and promotional budget was increased from $250,000 to $1 million.
Attendance improved this year, but there were still hundreds of empty seats each night.
Arrix said there were 10,000 more paid tickets per day, not including Monday. The average attendance for the first five days was 7,193 - a 57 percent increase from last year's per session average, but skimpy in an arena as large as Staples Center.
The final, in which Kim Clijsters defeated Amelie Mauresmo 6-2, 6-0 in 52 minutes, had an announced crowd of 8,925 - 1,307 less than last year's final between Clijsters and Serena Williams.
Overall, the six-day tournament drew 44,889 - 3,629 more than last year, when the Williams sisters and Lindsay Davenport were in the field. The trio missed this year because of injuries.
Justine Henin-Hardenne and Clijsters finished the year at Nos. 1 and 2 in the final WTA Tour rankings released Tuesday. Clijsters was runner-up to Henin-Hardenne in the French and U.S. opens.
Australian Open and Wimbledon champion Serena Williams is No. 3, while Mauresmo equals her career-best ranking of fourth. Lindsay Davenport, recovering from foot surgery, is fifth.
The second five are Jennifer Capriati, Anastasia Myskina, Elena Dementieva, Chanda Rubin and Ai Sugiyama. Venus Williams dropped out of the top 10 - to 11th - for the first time since March 1998. She was runner-up to her younger sister at the Australian Open and Wimbledon.
The Williams sisters were no-shows for a Sunday reunion of the 13 players ranked No. 1. It was part of the tour's 30th anniversary celebration honoring WTA founder Billie Jean King.
The sisters didn't play after Serena beat Venus for the Wimbledon title in July. Serena had foot surgery in August and Venus pulled a stomach muscle. They plan to return in January.
"I can tell you they have the eye of the tiger in them," Scott said. "I can tell you that they are going to be coming back with a vengeance next year."
Scott said talks are underway for the WTA and ATP tours to combine their season-ending championships, although he said a joint event is unlikely before 2006. The women played their six-day event in Los Angeles, while the men played this week in Houston.
AP NEWS
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