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ATP TOUR GETS ITS MAN! SAFIN COMES THROUGH FOR "NEW BALLS"

          The "launching" of the ATP Tour's ad campaign, "New
     Balls, Please," which features many of the Tour's younger
     players including 20-year-old Marat Safin, "came at the most
     appropriate time," as Safin defeated Pete Sampras in
     straight sets yesterday to win the U.S. Open men's singles
     championship, according to Marc Berman of the N.Y. POST. 
     Safin's win "signals the 'young generation' of men's tennis
     is ready to rock and roll" (N.Y. POST, 9/11).  In DC, Rachel
     Alexander writes, "While Sampras may have mocked the ad
     campaign earlier in [the] tournament, noting that the 'old
     ball is still healthy,' ... it was hard to ignore that
     Sampras, at 29, is going to have to, at the very least,
     start sharing the stage" (WASHINGTON POST, 9/11).  USA
     TODAY's Doug Smith writes that Safin's win gave the ATP
     Tour's campaign a "boost."  Smith calls Safin a "nice guy
     who finished first," and writes Safin "impressed U.S. Open
     fans throughout" the event with his "free-spirit charm and
     sense of humor" (USA TODAY, 9/11).  Safin was interviewed by
     Jane Clayson on CBS' "The Early Show" this morning.  After
     the interview, CBS' Bryant Gumbel said, "I would imagine ...
     the tennis establishment is anxious to magnify this victory,
     because they're hoping that men's tennis manages to catch on
     with the public in a fashion that it has not."  Clayson:
     "They need a new star. ... [But] nobody knows who this guy
     is. ... He was walking around the Open showing his I.D.
     card.  People wouldn't let him in places" (CBS, 9/11).      
          WOMEN'S TENNIS GETS ITS STAR, AS WELL: U.S. Open
     women's singles champion Venus Williams made the morning
     rounds today, as she was a guest on CBS' "The Early Show,"
     NBC's "Today," ABC's "Good Morning America," and "Live! With
     Regis!"  Venus, on criticism from players after her father,
     Richard, danced following her win on Saturday: "There's
     always a lot of criticism, there will always be a lot of
     criticism specially when you're doing good things" ("GMA,"
     9/11). U.S. Open women's singles championship sponsor Chase
     runs a full-page ad in the N.Y. TIMES congratulating
     Williams.  Venus and her sister Serena are featured in a
     full-page "Got Milk?" ad in USA TODAY (THE DAILY).
          OPEN NOTES: The U.S. Open "set records for total
     attendance," as yesterday's crowd of 23,115 "pushed the two-
     week total" to 605,487, "topping" the 584,490 that attended
     last year.  On September 1 and 2, the event drew more than
     31,000 fans, which also were records (ST. PETE TIMES, 9/11).
     ...In Toronto, Tom Tebbutt questions why the U.S. national
     anthem was sung before the men's and women's finals: "Could
     it not make a foreigner feel uncomfortable and even
     intimidated?"  Tebbutt writes "there's barely a peep of the
     host country's national anthem" at Wimbledon, the Australian
     Open and the French Open and calls the U.S. Open an int'l
     event with competitors from 41 countries: "Isn't it time the
     [USTA] took a less parochial view and got in step with its
     Grand Slam partners?" (Toronto GLOBE & MAIL, 9/11).

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