THE LOW DOWN: WTA CEO responds to Safina boycott threat, "Dinara was misinformed...," says Scott

It seems the WTA Tour CEO Larry Scott and Dinara Safina have cleared up some of the confusion over the Roadmap 2010.

Dinara had threatened a possible "boycott" next year after being told that top lady ballers would be allowed to enter limited tourneys while the rest get to pick and choose where to play:

If they [WTA] don't listen to what we have to say, we might even choose to boycott the new tour. They said the leading players would have to play in designated tournaments while lower-ranked players would be able to enter any event they like. There's no logic in that at all.

At issue is Moscow, which will not be a required stop for the top ballers but one of twenty "Premiere" tourneys of which they must play ten. As reported by the AFP, Scott said there was misinformation being communicated to the Russian baller:

Dinara was misinformed when she stated that the Kremlin Cup in Moscow was going to have a limited player commitment in 2009.

It is in fact one of five tournaments which falls the week immediately before a Grand Slam or the Sony Ericsson Championships that will have unlimited player commitment, meaning any number of top 10 players can play the event. We have since spoken with Dinara and clarified this detail.

The world no. 2 acknowledged the error and is hoping that she and the other top lady ballers "will have an opportunity to sit with the Tour leadership in the coming weeks to discuss certain elements of the Roadmap where I think there is still room for improvement."

Yes, a meeting might be a good start here folks. These miscommunications are unfortunate and reveal a worrisome disconnect between the WTA administrators and the ballers - no surprise there. But, why is this information, which is supposedly so important to the future of the Tour, getting lost in translation and misconstrued in such a public way?

Scott did a great service by responding to Dinara's concerns so quickly but the ballers, on both Tours in fact, are feeling disempowered in this situation. I'll guess we'll all have to wait and see how this Roadmap starts to play out.

(image via Getty)