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What a Racquet
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Business New Haven
9/4/2001
By: BNH
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Pick up your phone and dial 203-776-7331.
That's the number of the Pilot Pen tennis tournament. See who answers the call. It's Venus Williams!
Actually, it's a recording of Venus Williams, who on August 25 captured her third consecutive title at the New Haven event.
Good for her - though not exactly an unexpected feat by one of the world's greatest female athletes.
This year, the women's event attracted 92,687 spectators - a 13-percent increase over last year's figure of 82,363 and 25 percent above the 74,336 who flocked to the Connecticut Tennis Center in 1999.
The field of Williams, French and Aussie Open champ Jennifer Capriati, Lindsay Davenport and, in all, eight of the world's top ten players represented an attraction rivaled in Connecticut only by the Greater Hartford Open. Add Martina Hingis, late Pilot Pen scratch Monica Seles and Serena Williams, and you have a fifth Gland Slam.
Other, wiser heads have observed that tennis may be the first sport in which the women's version has outstripped the men's in popularity (can you name three of the men's top ten?). Nevertheless, there was a strong sense last month that the New Haven event had achieved a degree of traction with the ticket-buying public that augurs well for the future of women's tennis in the Elm City.
Given the struggles of other local sports franchises such as the baseball New Haven Ravens and hockey's New Haven Knights, the Pilot Pen's success is one of the feel-good moments of 2001.
Long may it live.
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