When Tennis in the Land is in full swing, organizers hope it’s after Cleveland’s summer break

The scene – professional women’s tennis courts overlooking the water on a beautiful summer day – is ideal.

As the huge ship rolls through the Cuyahoga River, it provides the moment for television that producers crave.

Like other major events hosted by Cleveland, the Jacobs Pavilion has a “beauty camera” to capture the glamor of the city.

There is a lot to like Tennis on land, a seven-day women’s tennis federation event that began at the Nautica Entertainment Complex on Sunday, August 22nd. The first tournament is the WTA 250 event, which is part of the US Open series and is held a week before the start of the main event. In New York.

What Top management, An agency based in Cleveland that represents pro-tennis and football players, hopes to prove that the tournament — Northeast Ohio’s largest women’s professional sporting event — may have been interrupted in the summer at Flats.

“It was hard to sell by rendering,” said Sam Duvall, a well-known tennis agent who founded Topnotch in 2016, after leaving Lagardère Sports.

Ideally, Duvall said, Topnotch will have “proof of concept” after the tournament ends for the first time at Nautica on Saturday, August 28th.

The event will cost approximately $ 600,000-800,000 annually, including a $ 235,238 prize pool in 2021. Topnotch, which owns the event, also had to pay more than a seven-digit fee to the WTA to confirm the date on the annual calendar of the best tennis round.

Asked Monday morning, about half an hour before the first match of the day, which began in the pavilion, if the event loses money in the first year, Duvall smiled and said, “Uh, yes.”

One of the main reasons is that Topnotch was unable to acquire a name sponsor. However, the company is so enthusiastic about the “Tennis in the Land” brand that top sponsorship, if sold for next year’s event, could mean “performer …” follows the current tournament title.

Topnotch has a three-year contract with Jacobs Entertainment, one Duvall said the agency “would like to continue”. Topnotch has committed to running the tournament for at least eight years, although the company’s founder said he hopes Tennis in the Land will stay in place for more than three decades.

The Jacobs Pavilion, which overlooks the Cuyahoga River and the Cleveland skyline, serves as the main stadium. Three practice fields are adjacent, in a renovated parking lot that is part of the FirstEnergy Powerhouse complex, and two outdoor match fields are in a renovated area behind the Harbor Inn.

The work involved in ensuring that the parking areas were paved with a 1% grade was considerable and expensive.

The field where a few bigger players withdrew just before the event is also not as strong as it initially seemed. Three of the world’s top 50 players – Jenn Brady (No. 14), Jessica Pegula (No. 25) and Johanna Konta (No. 47) – were included in the tournament campaigns, but they did not choose to participate in the event.

There are still some notables, such as Lauren Davis from Gates Mills and former Caroline Garcia of the top five. (Both are Topnotch customers.)

“You have a lot of transitions with players coming here,” Duvall said. “Some years they play this week. It sometimes depends on how they do the previous week.

“This year,” he added, “we think we were a little lucky. But we want to create an event that doesn’t depend on the player field. Some years we may have a great big name, and sometimes we don’t.”

The key, Topnotch’s president and founder, believes will build a bunch of “core” fans who want to participate each year, and will also attract casual sports fans.

One way to do that, Duvall said, is an installation that looks even better in person than in “beauty camera” shots.

“I think location is a big part of it,” Duvall said. “Atmosphere and beauty of the view: Cleveland in the summer, drink white claws and watch tennis.”