For the second year in a row, the WTA Finals struggles with filling in the stands, and Iga Swiatek thinks more can be done.
Some of that is geography because tennis is not equally popular around the world; like it or not, last year's WTA Finals venue had no business being the venue. Texas is not a tennis country in the United States; it's barely anything but an NFL country, so it made no sense.
Cancun is a resort town with not many year-long residents, making it a curious choice as well. Sure, it's a great destination, but that's not enough. We don't want images of half-empty stands going around the world; it's not just a good advertisement for tennis.
Swiatek doesn't like it either, and she wants to see the WTA do more and thinks they also can do more. She shared that in her latest post-match press conference:
Honestly, I think there’s plenty they can do. It’s a pretty weird situation where we have meetings with the WTA and we kind of explain to them what should be done sometimes.
For sure, there’s potential to work on that. Obviously, they decided late that we’re going to play here. For sure, you know the marketing should be better. It’s a shame that we don’t have a full stadium like we can’t really feel like we’re on a tennis celebration for the whole week.
The WTA has made some very curious choices in recent years and not many are very supportive of it. The WTA Finals in the past two years haven't been good but hopefully, things will be better in the future. We gotta hope, right?
Pressure from the players could certainly aid in that, so we'll see. Maybe we can all band together and see things improve in the future. It can't be worse than now, can it?
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