TENNIS: The top world tennis players Venus and Serena Williams, Anna Kournikova and Lindsay Davenport are scheduled to play in a tournament in Dublin from December 4th to 8th in what is being billed as a match between Europe and the USA, Johnny Watterson reports
The international event for which the European stars, apart from one of the biggest draws in world sport, Kournikova, have not yet been announced is to be one segment of a three-part entertainment event called "The Trilogy".
It is the first time big-name players will have performed in Dublin since exhibition games in the early 1990s at the RDS attracted large crowds to see Martina Navratilova and Aranxta Sanchez-Vicario. More recently the seniors event, staged at The Point in Dublin, attracted Bjorn Borg, John McEnroe and Guy Forget. None of the current top American or European female players, however, have played in Ireland.
The only previous time Ireland staged a competition involving a world-class competitor was when McEnroe arrived with the USA team to play Ireland in a Davis Cup tie in the 1980s. At that time, he was arguably the best player in the world.
Serena Williams, the most powerful female player on the circuit, is the number one ranked player in the world by some distance with her older sister Venus at number two.
Serena won the US Open in September and before that Wimbledon (taking the title from her sister) and the French Open. The only major she failed to capture this year was the Australian Open in January.
In winning at Flushing Meadows Serena became the first woman since Martin Hingis to win three Grand Slams in a year and in doing so joined a pantheon of great players - Steffi Graf, Navratilova, Monica Seles, Billy Jean King and Margaret Court.
Details of the Dublin competition will not be known until tomorrow when Propriety Management, an Irish event management company, announce the other European players who will take part. Given the high ranking of the US competitors, it is likely, for competitive reasons, that some of Europe's elite will also be involved.
Five European players are currently ranked in the top 10, French player Amelie Mauresmo (4), Belgium's Kim Clijsters (5), Yugoslavia's Jelena Dokic (6), Justine Henin (8) and Daniela Hantuchova (9).
One-time world number one Seles, born in the former Yugoslavia and now a naturalised American, is also still highly placed at seventh in the world.
Davenport is currently ranked 10th while Hingis, who is ranked 11th, is troubled with her game. She stated after the recent Porsche Grand Prix event that she would not be playing in any tournaments for the rest of the year.
Kournikova, who this summer at Wimbledon faced a barrage of criticism for allegedly putting her off-court business interests before her tennis career, is as of October 14th, ranked a lowly 34th in the world. Despite the fact that she went out in the first round in the singles event at Wimbledon this year, the Russian star managed to fill more column inches in British newspapers than any other player in the event.
Top players Anna Kournikova
(main photograph, and below from left to right), Serena Williams, Lindsay Davenport and Venus Williams are scheduled to
play in a tournament in
Dublin in December.
