Music: {allcanada} Allaster thrilled to Rogers Hall with elite

Monday, July 25, 2011

{allcanada} Allaster thrilled to Rogers Hall with elite

TORONTO -- Stacey Allaster is thrilled to be heading into the Rogers Cup Hall of Fame -- even more so when she considers the company she'll be keeping.

Allaster, the chairman and CEO of the WTA, will be inducted next month in Toronto at the tournament she helped develop as its director from 2002 to 2005. The Windsor, Ont., native will go in alongside men's tennis legends Andre Agassi and Jimmy Connors.

"Honestly, I haven't been able to capture what it means to me," Allaster said on a conference call Monday. "To get a call from Michael Downey (Tennis Canada's CEO), and he says 'Stace, we'd like to invite you to be inducted into the Rogers Cup Hall of Fame. And then he sort of adds in 'You're going to join the induction class with Andre Agassi.' It's just beyond my wildest dreams. I am very proud."

Allaster and Agassi will be inducted at Toronto's Rexall Centre at the women's Rogers Cup on Aug. 13, while Connors will be honoured during the men's tournament at Montreal's Uniprix Stadium on Aug. 6.

Allaster, who also once served as Tennis Canada's vice-president, spends most of her time these days in St. Petersburg, Fla., working out of the WTA Tour's head office. But she's kept a keen eye on Canadians rising up the tennis ranks, and said Canadian tennis is in an "incredible place" with the likes of 28th-ranked Milos Raonic of Thornhill, Ont., and Rebecca Marino of Vancouver, No. 41 in the WTA rankings.

"I tell you sitting here in Florida watching the Tennis Channel, my husband and I watched Milos become a star during the Australian Open," she said. "I was listening in, and Martina Navratilova was doing the commentating for that match and she said, 'This kid is going to be top 10.' ... And that was early in the tournament before he went the distance."

The 20-year-old Raonic was ousted in the fourth round of the Australian Open.

Pending any late withdrawals, the Rogers Cup women's field boasts the top 25-ranked players in the world, according to Tennis Canada officials.

Fans are in for a treat, said Allaster, named one of Forbes magazine's "Most Powerful Women in Sports" in 2010. The women's game is better than it has ever been she said, boasting "a mix of rising stars, established stars, and global stars."

She pointed out that the world's top 10 players hail from nine different countries, and the WTA tour includes 53 events in 33 countries.

"Right now the WTA is in this incredible place... we truly are a global tour," Allaster said. "The calibre of tennis each year just gets better, I've got this great job where I have to now really watch them. And so I see it.

"They truly are the world's best female athletes week in and week out, and I just marvel each and every time I watch them, at how hard they can hit the ball, the amount of agility that they have, and we're going to have a fantastic Rogers Cup."

Agassi, an eight-time Grand Slam winner and Olympic Gold medallist, captured the Rogers Cup three times (1992, 1994 and 1995), the last of which was a classic final against his rival Pete Sampras.

He's participated at the Canadian stop 14 times and is returning in August to play in the inaugural Rogers Legends Cup.

Connors is a six-time Rogers Cup semifinalist. He holds 109 ATP titles and eight Grand Slams, including five U.S. Opens -- a record that has only been matched by Sampras and Roger Federer.