TENNIS fever in south Liverpool may never quite match the fervent scenes that unfold in south west London every year when the All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club opens its gates at Wimbledon.

But, credit where credit is due, the Liverpool International Tennis Tournament has become a high point of the city's growing events schedule.

Interest in the 2010 event at Calderstones Park was high in various quarters – spectators, sponsors and the media.

The event owes much of its success to a small but dedicated team led by people with a powerful combination of business prowess and a love of sport. Over the years, the event has been fine-tuned to the point where the organisers should take a well- earned bow.

Add to the mix a willingness among many in this region’s corporate sector, notably those with a liking for a slightly classier corporate hospitality option at an affordable price, to support the Liverpool International, and the winning formula emerges.

The event has regularly attracted big names best described as distinguished veterans (John McEnroe this year) with the pedigree and class to bump up box office business.

The Liverpool International is an important event for lots of reasons – profile, business opportunities and crowd-pleasing fun among them.

It doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not. In the strictest sense, the same may not apply to Wimbledon.

We are used to global televised sport transforming many events in many ways – not least finance.

The All England Club once recruited as its finance director a veteran from a huge US-based media group. In an interview before one championship fortnight, he said the size of the numbers he dealt with at the tennis club were not dissimilar to those in some of his former group’s biggest deals hammered out in a Manhattan skyscraper. This year's championship, despite the economic climate, will generate hundreds of millions of pounds in revenue.

In many sports, the headlines are grabbed by the stars whose achievements (or lack of them, in the case of England's World Cup campaign to date) fill the valuable airtime negotiated by promoters and broadcasters.

Yet, it’s the grass roots level participants and supporters who support the top of the financial pyramid.