Dublin event awaits sanction

TENNIS: Despite the large-scale imagination and attractiveness of the star-laden RDS tennis event, which starts on December 5th and involves six of the top 10 players in the world, the competition still has to get the support of the governing body of tennis in this country, Tennis Ireland.

Yesterday Tennis Ireland's chief executive Des Allen said that his organisation would only sanction the event after they received a number of written assurances from organisers Propriety Management. He added that a decision would be made on Saturday after a directors' meeting.

"Our directors will meet on Saturday morning and decide whether to sanction the event or not. We are generally very positive about events like these as they have an important part to play in promoting tennis in Ireland," said Allen. "I gave them a list with a number or areas about which we needed reassurance."

Importantly, the Chernobyl Childrens Project supports the event which ranges in price from €70 for regular seating to €550 for executive packages. It is scheduled to run over three days in a Ryder Cup-type format with the European players competing with the Americans in a team competition.

According to the London office of International Management Group (IMG), the biggest sports management company in the world, their stable of tennis players including Venus and Serena Williams will be travelling to Dublin in December for the event, although Venus did pull out of a recent end-of-season WTA event in Los Angeles due to injury.

Instigated by former Irish tennis professional Sean Collins, the three-tier programme - The Trilogy - incorporates a tennis competition, a fashion show and a concert and runs from December 4th to 8th. No details of the fashion or music events have yet been released, although this is typically done in a drip-feed way to maximise publicity.

There has been considerable debate surrounding the competition on Joe Duffy's RTÉ radio phone-in programme Liveline over the past two days.

The biggest tennis names currently listed to travel are the two Williams sisters, ranked one and two in the world, Anna Kournikova, Jennifer Capriati, Monica Seles, Lindsay Davenport and Daniela Hantuchova. Serena earned almost $4 million this year and lost only seven matches. It is costing the organisers €1.65 million to bring the players to Dublin.

Meanwhile, Kim Clijsters stunned Serena Williams to capture the WTA Championships in Los Angeles late on Monday night and in the process sent a message regarding the invincibility of the world's top player.

Clijsters posted a surprise 7-5, 6-3 victory over Williams in 85 minutes in the final of the season-ending event. Clijsters said. "This is definitely my biggest win, and it feels incredible. At the time, I couldn't believe when she missed that match point. I couldn't believe I won. I had goosebumps all over my body. It was amazing."

In defeating Williams for the first time in six meetings, Clijsters handed the world number one just her fifth loss of the season.

Spanish great Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario has announced her retirement.

The 30-year-old surprised few after what for her had been a uniquely lean year. But she stressed that although her reasons for drawing the curtain were "personal", she was greatly looking forward to life out of the public eye.

The Barcelona-born star, who began her professional career at the age of 13, won 29 titles, including four Grand Slam events - three French and one US Open.

Meanwhile, Lleyton Hewitt gained a vital edge over rival Andre Agassi in their duel for the world's number one ranking yesterday by defeating Spaniard Albert Costa 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 in the first round of the season-ending Masters Cup in Shanghai, China.

Agassi (32), will now have to win the tournament and hope that Hewitt (21) doesn't make the final if he is to become the oldest player in history to finish the year as the world's top player.

In the other two matches of the first day's play, Carlos Moya upset Marat Safin 6-4, 7-5 and Roger Federer eased past Juan Carlos Ferrero 6-3, 6-4.