Iga Swiatek blames WTA’s ‘poor’ marketing as the main reason behind empty stadiums in Cancun

Swiatek was surprised to see empty stands in the stadium during her group stage match against Marketa Vondrousova.

Iga Swiatek blames WTA’s ‘poor’ marketing as the main reason behind empty stadiums in Cancun

Iga Swiatek (Credits: WTA)

For any sport, the crowd forms the backbone of the game and is an extremely essential asset to a sport like tennis. Many a time, the crowd and the fans present in the stadium become the deciding factor and very much influence the result of a tennis game. Iga Swiatek realized this during her group stage match at the WTA Finals.

Realizing the importance of a crowd at the tennis stadium, World No.2 was very disappointed with the poor marketing skills of the WTA as it failed to gather the fans to the stadiums. Swiatek expressed her unhappiness with the largely empty stadiums at the WTA Finals in Cancun, Mexico. 

Obviously, they decided late that we’re gonna play here. The marketing should be better.
Swiatek via Cancun Press
YouTube video

After a good victory over Marketa Vondrousova in the group stages of the WTA Finals, one might expect the Polish to be happy with the result. However, what bothered Swiatek was the absence of crowds at the stadiums which overshadowed her victory. Many players noticed this issue but the 2023 French Open Champion was the first to raise her opinion on this matter.

FS Video

Adding further on this issue, Iga Swiatek stated, 

It’s a shame we don’t have a full stadium & we can’t really feel like we’re at like a tennis celebration for the whole week. In Grand Slams we have full stands basically even sometimes in second rounds.

Iga Swiatek hopes to see more crowd in the later stages of the tournament

The 4 time Grand Slam Champion mentioned how she was surprised to see empty stands in the stadium during her group stage match against Marketa Vondrousova. Swiatek blamed the poor marketing by the WTA. She mentioned, 

Honestly, I think there’s plenty they can do. It’s a pretty weird situation where we have meetings with the WTA & we kind of explain to them what should be done sometimes.
Iga Swiatek
Iga Swiatek (Credits: Sky Sports)

Talking about how there is plenty of room for work to be done, the Pole says how she would like to see things change in the future. The World No.2 added,

Hopefully for the future there won’t be any more situations like that & they’re gonna work to improve that because we’re doing our best at every tournament, here’s definitely room for improvement.

On the sports side of things, Swiatek won 6-0, 7-5 in a windy Cancun yesterday against Coco Gauff. She has now won both of her group matches.

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