Tennis Uncoordinated: Pam Shriver hits out at Tours for clashing match timings

Pam Shriver would like tournaments to stagger the start time of finals so that fans can watch more of them rather than choose just one

Spectators watch tennis at the Eastbourne International Image Credit: AI / Reuters / Panoramic

Haresh Ramchandani

June 20, 2022

Pam Shriver, 21-time Grand Slam doubles champion and a former world No 3 in singles, has hit out at tour officials for scheduling of the finals of last week’s tournaments at the same time.

Sunday saw the finals of four grass court events being played – the finals of Queen’s Club and Halle on the ATP Tour, and the finals of Birmingham and Berlin on the WTA Tour. With just a one hour difference between Germany and the United Kingdom, tennis fans, including Shriver, were faced with the dilemma of which match to watch.

Shriver, who is also a leading tennis commentator on television, tweeted on Sunday wondering why the finals were not staggered so that fans across the world could watch more of the action rather than choosing which one to watch.

“ATP Tour is it good to have two big finals before Wimbledon played at same time for the fans watching on TV? Not to mention WTA finals. Can’t we as a sport at least stagger the final’s start times so we can watch more of them?,” Pam Shriver tweeted.

@atptour is it good to have two big finals before @Wimbledon played at same time for the fans watching on TV? Not to mention @WTA finals. Can’t we as a sport at least stagger the final’s start times so we can watch more of them?
— Pam Shriver (@PHShriver) June 20, 2022

There were mixed reactions to her tweet, with noted tennis journalist Craig Gabriel defending the tours while another tennis writer, Michael Dickens, siding with Shriver.

Pammy juggling 4 finals is no joke as you know. There was a bit of time difference between them. The men's draws were 56, maybe the women which had way smaller draws should've finished on Saturday. And then there's TV programming to weigh up in the respective countries.
— Craig Gabriel (@crosscourt1) June 20, 2022

It makes no sense the way the title matches are scheduled week after week between ATP & WTA. No sense of cooperation between them or tournaments. Today, London & Halle match points occurred at the same time. Pam, thank you for being a voice of reason and speaking out about this.
— Michael Dickens (@michaelcdickens) June 20, 2022

In recent times, the ATP Tour and WTA Tour have worked to increase collaboration between the tours. These have included the announcement of a joint Netflix series, a joint response to the global pandemic, more consistency and alignment related to rules and format, and coordinated fundraising initiatives.

As part of their recent OneVision announcement, the ATP Tour said they were working with the other governing bodies of tennis to create more synergies between the various stakeholders in the sport in Phase 2 of the project.