ASB Classic organisers hopeful despite dire weather forecast for WTA tour event

The ASB Tennis Centre, Auckland

ASB Classic organisers have their fingers crossed for next week's women's tournament, despite a dire weather forecast.

With the event to get underway on Monday, the Met Service is predicting rain and showers to hit Auckland for most of the week.

Auckland's weather is notoriously changeable – from one day to the next – but the current outlook is less than ideal.

Constant rain delays battered the women's event last year, especially in the early part of the week.

There were only two matches completed on the Monday – as Serena Williams' first-round match was completely rained out – and inclement weather also forced many stoppages the following day.

ASB Classic tournament director Karl Budge doesn't want a week where he is constantly looking to the heavens but is philosophical.

"It's one of those things, it's an outdoor tennis tournament and you are always going to have weather to contend with," said Budge. "You can never plan for rain so we need to keep cracking on and hope the weather gods are as kind as they can be."

Essentially though we need to keep playing on," added Budge. "It's like a cricket match...how many overs are they going to get if it rains?

"As always we have teams in place to get the courts dry as quick as they can if it does rain and we will get tennis going in and around it."

Last year's weather in the first week also created scheduling changes, with some tournament 'day' sessions extending well into the evening, which had flow-on effects for the night session patrons.

"It happens all over the world," said Budge. "There have been Australian Open and US Open night sessions that have not started until midnight and our sport is pretty unique in that way."

"But one thing we did learn from last year was that we need to communicate better.

"Sure, we can't control the weather and we just have to ride it out, like any other outdoor event at that time…but what we can do better is continue to communicate across every platform that we have got, we didn't do as well as we could with that last year."

Budge still has some regrets about last year's event – when the strongest field in the event's history – with Serena and Venus Williams as well as Caroline Wozniacki – was accompanied by some of the most inconsistent weather in years.

"We had assembled one of the best lineups of sport this country had ever seen," said Budge. "So to sit in the office and hear the wind and the rain..that was pretty frustrating but you can't control it."