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).