Q. I notice that the betting sites - I was trying to read an Andy Murray article, not gambling - and I noticed on the betting sites, that they stream video. We've come to demonize betting for obvious reasons, but betting has actually added some popularity to tennis. How does tennis work by increasing the popularity without demonizing it? How do you work with betting without demonizing it? Because a number of fans bet and they stream video. How do you work with that? Build a working relationship with that?

CHARLIE PASARELL: “First of all, you are right. It would be impossible for us to eliminate betting in tennis or eliminate betting in any sport. It happens, okay?

“You know, the dangers are that we don't want to corrupt the sport. I don't know have the answer, the exact answer today, but it's something that I know not only is the ATP, the Sony Ericsson, WTA Tour, all the Slams, we are looking at this very, very seriously.

“We have retained experts to really, you know, do investigations and analysis of, you know, how can we, how can we get this sport to, you know, be out there and prevent it from being corruption.

“In a way, we're not trying to stop the betting. We're trying to stop the corruption. That's legally what we're trying to do. We know we can't stop the betting. I guess we can take a shot at it, but it's just impossible to do that.

“But it is a serious problem, and, you know, kind of, in a way, I think what you're saying, is that the element of gambling sometimes creates an attraction to something, and that's true. You know, we know that people bet lots of money, football, they bet lots of money on basketball games. It just happens.

“So now they're starting to bet a lot of money in tennis. Kind of in a way, saying, Wow, we're now being considered a major sport in a way.” (laughter.)

Q. Any thoughts to adding other events during the second week? Maybe juniors, college, something like that might be coming up soon?

CHARLIE PASARELL: “Yes. Some of you know about it, but we get an unbelievable amount of requests from young players and players from this area, and actually from elsewhere, about can I get a walk-on? Can I get a walk-on to the qualifying?

“So we have now started creating these competitions before the tournament that are pre, pre, pre-qualifying. I mean, we're calling them a challenge. And so this year, for example, we had both in the men's and the women's we had a draw of, I believe, 32 players, wasn't, 32 in each? … 32 players, or local players, that whoever won from each of those things would get -- actually two players will go into the pre, pre-qualifying. Yeah, into the pre-pre-qualifying tournament. Then we would bring some players from outside, you know, and that then -- they have a playoff, and whoever won that tournament, that little mini tournament, will then move on to get a wildcard into the qualifying.

“We hope to expand that. It's an opportunity to give a lot of kids and hopeful players to break through the ranks that normally they wouldn't get a chance to play.”

Q. How about during the tournament, during the second week as it starts funneling down...

CHARLIE PASARELL: “One of the things we're doing, this involves amateur players. What are we calling it? Tom Fey, who is our director of tennis here, he puts it together with the USTA. We have 12 out of the 16, 17 sections in the -- 17 sections -- we have 12 of the sections have had competitions and, we've taken 3.5 level, men and women, they have taken their winners, and they've send them down here to compete.

“As we speak, they're out there playing, and they're having this competition. We will, you know, present them with nice trophies, playing alongside the pros. They get to watch the finals. We had about 190 players, I think, 190 players participating in this.”

RAYMOND MOORE: “But we're also looking at a junior event. We have that on the drawing board. We're looking at it. We would like to have a major junior event here.”

Q. You do have the different college events during the year, but this being spring break, a lot of those teams are looking for warm weather climates.

CHARLIE PASARELL: “We've done that, too. We've had college teams come out and play. We really try to go beyond just having the top pros play here.

“And other things, I looked at, you know, Tom Fey runs, besides this tournament, the Pacific Life Open, we run about 15 other events here throughout the year of all kinds of competitions, amateur competitions, and collegiate events and a number of things.

“So we really -- we're out there to grow tennis for this facility.”

Q. Charlie, is there any chance that this tournament can also do mixed doubles next tournament?

CHARLIE PASARELL: ”We've talked about that. Again, you know, it's a function of how much the players really want to play and, yeah, we've talked about it. That would be a consideration.”

Q. Charlie, I seem to bring this up every year so I might as well keep the faith. It seems to me that seeding one third of the players in a 96-player draw and giving them all of them byes is a distortion of what a seed is meant to do, which is to recognize past accomplishment. You've got seeds in your event, guys that haven't won any more matches this year than they've lost. Do you have any idea you might change that?

CHARLIE PASARELL: “No. I think that we're doing the right thing.”

Q. How many seeds were there when you were playing at Wimbledon?

RAYMOND MOORE: “Sixteen.”

CHARLIE PASARELL: “Sixteen. I think at one time there were only eight. You weren't born yet.” (laughter.)

RAYMOND MOORE (to Pasarell): “That was back when you and Bill Tilden were playing.” (Laughter.)

Q. What is your rationale, Charlie? Because it's absurd.

CHARLIE PASARELL: “You think so? To seed 32 players?”

Q. Yes. Seed them all.

CHARLIE PASARELL: “It's not an objective opinion by anybody. It's a subjective opinion. Basically, we think that if you've earned -- you're a 32nd highest ranked player, you deserve a bye, because it's based on ranking. You are the 32nd best player.”

Q. But then why not seed them all?

CHARLIE PASARELL: “We're trying to be modern. Anyway, we can argue this subjectively all the time.”

Q. That's your feeling?

CHARLIE PASARELL: “There's no -- it's just what you think. Not what is right or wrong.”

Q. The Slams also award 32 seeds, but at least they make them play in the first round. Here's it's a passport.

CHARLIE PASARELL: “We would make them play in the first round if they let us expand the draw to 128.”

Q. Would you like that?

CHARLIE PASARELL: “Sure. Absolutely.”

RAYMOND MOORE: “Absolutely.”

Q. In the same time frame?

RAYMOND MOORE: “No, you can't.”

CHARLIE PASARELL: “We would probably need to probably start on Wednesday, need to start on Wednesday with the men's matches. We're starting on Thursday, but we would need to start on Wednesday.”

RAYMOND MOORE: “You need to start even earlier than that, and this year, interestingly enough, it was the players, the ATP players that requested a day earlier start.”

CHARLIE PASARELL: “It wasn't us.”

RAYMOND MOORE: “It used to only be 10 days (with) the men. Now we're 11, and at the annual meeting at Wimbledon the players requested the extra day, because they're now treating this like a mini Slam. It's important that they get the day off, you know, after a match.

“But just to embellish on what Charlie said, is, yes, we'd love to go to a 128 draw. If they gave us 14 days like the Slams, we'd do it in a heartbeat.”

Q. You're also obliged now to have 32 seeds. It's not like your decision?

CHARLIE PASARELL: “It's the tour rules.”

Q. But the players don't want 128-player, two tournaments in a row. They're not going to play...

RAYMOND MOORE: “No, they don't. What they enjoy now, is the players that have finished today have three or four days off before they have to play in Key Biscayne. Ones that lost earlier have a little more time, and they want that break between our tournament and Miami. So I think right now it works. It works for everybody. I know that 32 players getting a bye is controversial, but it's a tour rule and it's something the players, you know -- we have to abide by that rule whether we like it or not.

CHARLIE PASARELL: “Just to correct you there, there will be 32 players that don't get into the main draw that would love to have 128 draws.”

Q: Wouldn't you agree, too, you'd never play Wimbledon and the French Open back to back. So if it's mandatory players and you have all the best players in the world here, you'd never play those two tournaments back to back.

CHARLIE PASARELL: “But we could separate Miami and Indian Wells by a week or two so that could be also done.”

Q. Is there any possibility that that could happen, go to 128?

CHARLIE PASARELL: “You know, I never say never.”

Q. Pretty close?

CHARLIE PASARELL: “It's not on, you know, the agenda.”

RAYMOND MOORE: “It's not on the radar screen right now. I think what we have now both for Miami and ourselves is we are the two most successful tournaments outside of the Grand Slams. It works. It works for both tournaments right now.”

Q. On the WTA side, still, the two biggest names from the United States are Venus and Serena Williams. You're going next year to mandatory entry, but they haven't appeared here the last few years. Are you making active outreach efforts and working to bring them here?

CHARLIE PASARELL: “We've been doing that every year. You know, I keep saying that question gets asked every year by many people. I say, We'd love to have them come. It would be fantastic if they came. If they came, I think they'd get a tremendous reception here.

“Yeah, I mean, we'd love to have them come, so it will be an interesting approach, you know. But I always will say I don't -- at least ... I've always acted this way: I never ask or beg or try to force a player to come and play here. You know, if they want to come and play, great. If they don't want to come and play, that's their loss, not ours, in my opinion. That's the way I feel. I genuinely feel that way.”

Q. Coming back to the WTA, a couple years ago this tournament was in a little bit of financial hardship, and the USTA came in and became a partner. There was a lot of moving around of the chairs. Now the Acura Challenge over in La Costa has been canceled by the women's tour. Is there any chance this tournament could get a women's tournament back in La Costa in conjunction with the USTA?

RAYMOND MOORE: “Well, firstly, we don't need another women's tournament here, but we actually did bid to buy that tournament, the Acura. We went to the WTA and made a financial offer to buy that event. It was turned down. The USTA tried to buy it. That was turned down. And because it didn't fit into the overall plan of the WTA, they wanted to retire one or two of the big tournaments in the United States to have Beijing come in as a big tournament. That was the trade-off with the WTA.”

Q. If you would have been successful to buy the Acura, would you have kept it in San Diego County?

RAYMOND MOORE: “Yes, that was the whole point. I met with the owners of the resort, KSL in Carlsbad, and we really wanted to keep that tournament there because we thought it was a great market at a great time in the summer in California. Beautiful weather. In another region that traditionally over the years has had big-time tennis.

“There were several suitors, you know, trying to buy that tournament, but the WTA, what ended up happening was the WTA ended up buying that tournament, paying off Raquel and her partner, and they retired that franchise from the United States.

“Then they sold it to Beijing. So that's the way they got Beijing in at that level.”

Q. Your stadium, Stadium 1 doesn't have a very sexy name. Why not name the stadium on an annual basis for the two singles champions? It would be Sharapova/Djokovic Stadium until next year, whoever wins the singles championships until the finals next year, and then it becomes the men's and women's singles final stadium for one year. It sounds a lot better than Stadium 1.

RAYMOND MOORE: “I know, but there are a lot of things we can do, and we've thought about those. We've thought about naming some of the stadiums after great California players, Jack Kramer, whoever. We've thought about all that. We happened to have a guy who lives here in the desert named Pete Sampras who is also an investor, so we've thought about some of that.”

CHARLIE PASARELL: “Billie Jean King.”

RAYMOND MOORE: “Billie Jean King kind of preempted us by going to New York.”

Q. Actually, it was interesting when she showed up at Madison Square Garden for the Sampras/Federer match, some guy said, 'Oh, no. They're not name this place after her, as well?'

CHARLIE PASARELL: “They should. She is … ”

RAYMOND MOORE: “… the most enthusiastic. I mean, I saw Billie Jean and she jumped up the other day in our suite, she jumped up and just peppered me with questions, ba, ba, ba, ba. Why did you do this? Why did you do that?”

CHARLIE PASARELL: “She is great. Can't find a better partner than her. Can't find a better girl than her. She's our hero in my book, absolute hero.”

-- Jim Alexander
jalexander@PE.com