This is the letter that I wrote to the WTA when they decided to move the Chase Championships to Munich, Germany from 2001 onwards, so that Monica would not be able to play. I emailed it to the WTA at "[email protected]". But now I'm laughing, because the tournament was such an abject failure in Germany that they moved it back to America in 2002! :-)
I am writing to protest about the WTA Tour's decision to move the Chase Championships to Germany from 2001 onwards. As a devout Selesian (worshipper of Monica Seles), I feel deeply that this decision is very wrong.
It's not that I hate Germany as a country - Monica says that it's a beautiful country where she has many friends. It's not that I hate the German people either - in fact Anke Huber is my sixth favourite tennis player, and Boris Becker was my favourite men's tennis player. However, Germany is stained not only by the Stabbing itself, but also by the way that it was dealt with following that tragic incident.
By playing the Citizen Cup 1993 in Hamburg, Monica was an international guest of Germany, and they had a responsibility to guarantee her security. They failed. Monica was stabbed in the back by a German so that another German could usurp Monica's world number one ranking. They succeeded. The tournament continued exactly as if it had been an ordinary injury retirement. And then, months later, the German law decided not to punish the guilty parties (except for a two-year suspended sentence for G�nther Parche), not even after an appeal in 1995. No wonder Monica can't enter Germany due to trauma and fear, and won't enter Germany as a matter of principle. And now you, the WTA Tour, want to reward Germany with the most important tennis tournament outside of the Grand Slams and the Olympics.
Monica is the greatest tennis player of all time. She has demonstrated this on court numerous times, before (and since) the Stabbing. She proved it as a matter of principle through the glory of her Comeback. She even came back as the best player in the world: in her first four tournaments back, she won the 1995 Canadian Open for the loss of fourteen games, she morally won the 1995 US Open (she would have won the final 7-6 (8-6) 6-0 if it wasn't for that bad call on set point in the tiebreak), and she won Sydney and the Australian Open 1996.
Monica is the saviour of the tennis world: the game was in a very bad state in 1995, and has gone from strength to strength ever since she came back. Monica pioneered the modern power game - players such as Lindsay Davenport and the Williams sisters owe their success to Monica. Monica has done more to attract interest to tennis and draw in the crowds than any other player in the last decade. And you repay her by making a decision which you are fully aware will exclude her from the Chase Championships, a tournament which is supposed to include the top sixteen players in the world. Monica is world number four today, and by the time of the 2001 Chase Championships she will be world number one and the defending Chase Champion. And when Monica retires in many years' time, are you proposing to hold her Chase Championships retirement ceremony in Germany as well?
I realise that an organisation cannot make an exception for an individual in all cases where a decision affects everybody involved. But the Stabbing makes an exception of everything. Why do you have to move the Chase Championships to Germany of all countries?
That the Chase Championships is being moved to Germany for financial gain is the most despicable of all possible reasons. I realise that the world, in its current imperfect state, cannot operate without money, but I despise the attitude that money is the primary motivating factor, rather than that which is morally right. I don't agree with the argument about bringing the season to a premature end either.
I hope the WTA reconsider the decision to move the Chase Championships to Germany, or at least move them back out of Germany after 2001, if it's too late to retract the move now. It would be nice to hold the Chase Championships in a different country every year, but avoiding Germany even after Monica's retirement, unless and until she absolves the country by willingly going back there.
I also hope that other players see fit to boycott the Chase Championships in sympathy, whenever they are held in Germany.