by Ian Hargraves, Liverpool Daily Post
THIS year’s Calderstones tennis international had to face some of the worst problems incurred during its six-year existence, but still managed to attract the biggest number of spectators (some 17,000) and generate some of the best matches.
Promoter Anders Borg lost his star attraction Bjorn Borg only a few days before the event began, but managed to find a first class deputy in former Wimbledon champion Richard Krajicek, who put on a magnificent display in beating Pat Cash.
Greg Rusedski was another casualty, having to pull out with a shoulder injury, and local hero Ken Skupski put up a wonderful fight (in Speke) against the men’s ultimate winner David Ferrer, before losing by three points in the final set.
Quite apart from all this, the weather was dreadful for much of the time, with one day washed out completely and another drastically reduced, but somehow the tournament kept on rising to the occasion and providing bags of outstanding entertainment.
“I was very proud of the way our tournament turned out,” promoter Anders Borg said.
“We were a bit lucky in one way, because look what happened in Leeds, but the players rose to the challenge, and our staff worked themselves into the ground to keep the courts playable.
“We did have some complaints because of the complete loss of play on Thursday, but we couldn’t really have done anything about that. Our average price at the moment is £10 a day, which is quite cheap really, but we might have to look at the possibility of raising that by a couple of pounds next year.
“I honestly think we produced two great champions, who both won outstanding finals (Ashley Harkleroad and David Ferrer), and the standard of veterans like Pat Cash really surprised me, because it was so high. One thing we will have to try and do is improve the drainage system off the court, because that became quite a problem, despite the staff working tremendously hard on it.”
One big plus for Anders Borg was that his eight-year-old daughter Alexandra won both her matches in the contest between Oslo and Liverpool schools, which Liverpool won by an amazing 14-13 – and another may come when he takes on Pat Cash at Queens’ Club in the near future – though he is not too optimistic about that.
Perhaps a better and more appropriate reward would be for the City Council to make him a Freeman of Liverpool in this, their great celebratory year, as a thank-you for the way he has gradually created then developed one of the country’s most interesting tennis tournaments, in extremely difficult circumstances.