Weber has the model for modern tennis era

Letter From Halle

Gerhard Weber is not a man who smiles much, though a mild grin is seen more often these days.

The impresario behind the Gerry Weber Open grass-court tennis event in the sleepy northern German town of Halle was entitled to a smug snigger at the weekend. While he could not outsmart his rival event, the Stella Artois Championships at Queen's Club, London, for its semi-final line-up of Sampras v Hewitt and Henman v Ferreira, his semi-finals were played, while not a ball was struck in anger at Queen's.

The reason is not that it does not rain in Halle (it most assuredly does, and did), but that Weber has a roof over his 12,300-seater centre court. He did not need it on Saturday but, when the rain came yesterday, his final still went ahead exactly at the time he had told players, spectators, and television companies that it would.

While the Samprases, Henmans and Rusedskis still prepare for Wimbledon at the Stella, Weber has built up his event to ­ in most respects ­ the second-best tennis tournament on grass. He has a hotel on site where the players are treated regally, two of the practice courts are under cover, and the next round of expansion plans ­ already on display in model form ­ include a roof over his second show court. And last year he earned the accolade of the male players, who voted Halle the best tournament outside the four Grand Slams and the nine Masters Series events.

The story of Weber and his Halle tournament is a paradigm for modern tennis. Those who revel in the commercialisation of the sport see the rise of Halle as natural. Those who fear traditions are being eroded by money are understandably threatened by this grave-looking, self-made man.

In 1973 Gerhard Weber, then 32, began designing women's clothes in his garage in Halle, a town of Tudor-timbered houses and less than 20,000 inhabitants in eastern Westphalia. Within 10 years he was a millionaire through his brand name Gerry Weber (his clothes, aimed at women aged 35-60, are now available in Britain), and he had built on his hobby of tennis to become president of the local club, Blau-Weiss Halle.

It seemed his crowning achievement when, in 1992, he hosted a Challenger tournament (one level below the full ATP tour), but Weber is never happy with second best, and decided to build on the success of his Challenger event by asking for a slot in the full tour schedule.

His reaction when the ATP gave him the week before Wimbledon was anger. How could he run a meaningful clay-court event the week before Wimbledon?! "Don't try," his son Ralf said to him, "play it on grass". So, with money no object, Germany's first professional grass-court tournament was spawned. And when he lost a full day to rain during the first year, he decided immediately to build a roof over his centre court. It was ready for the 1994 tournament, and used.

Weber is a man who will not take no for an answer. While that has earned him plaudits from those admire his get-up-and-go attitude, there are those who have felt threatened (notably the Stella Artois organisers) and plenty who have had to pick up the pieces.

One such man is Weber's son, Ralf, who has been the tournament director since the start but until recently seemed very much his father's puppet. Gerhard (he likes to make the distinction between Gerhard Weber the person and Gerry Weber the brand name) did not help by constantly referring to Ralf in public as "my son", which always seemed to put the likeable tournament director down, but Weber Snr has now curbed that, and it has coincided with a marked growth in Ralf's public confidence.

Another is Phil Thorn, the 40-year-old English groundsman who has been in Halle since the start. Weber's wish for a roof that could be closed in 90 seconds wreaked havoc with the amount of sunlight the grass would get. "I want a roof. The grass is your problem," was Weber's attitude. Since then Thorn has developed a palette system of growing the centre court outside the arena and bringing it in for just five weeks a year. The model is now used in other sporting stadiums, but grass as a living organism is a fragile commodity, and there is a sense of resentment on Thorn's side that the bad bounces on the centre court often earn more attention than his achievement in creating a playable surface in such difficult conditions.

The moveability of the grass has allowed Weber to make Halle the focal point for the whole region of eastern Westphalia, whose only city of moderate size is the somewhat soulless Bielefeld. The stadium is not only used for tennis, but for a programme of other events like pop concerts and boxing bouts and last week Patrick Rafter's and Yevgeny Kafelnikov's post-match press conferences were interspersed by Placido Domingo dropping in to promote a forthcoming concert.

So where does Weber go from here? He says he is happy with the tournament the way it is, but if ever the tennis calendar is rejigged to put in an extra week between the French Open and Wimbledon, he is well placed to expand his entry to become the showcase tournament in the run-up to Wimbledon.

And if ever the ATP decides to add a grass-court tournament to its élite Masters Series (as Greg Rusedski has said they should), Halle is much better placed than Queen's to fill the breach, especially if there is soon a roof over a second show court. "We don't need the tag of 'Masters Series event'," says Weber, but as he has previously said he would like to think of "Wimbledon beginning in Halle" he would hardly decline the tag if offered.

Weber is the modern face of tennis commercialisation. Because he has money, the ATP listens, and sometimes jumps. The traditionalists may not like it, but this is a man who cannot be wished away.