Tennis Week's Major Makeover

It's fascinating to see how IMG, that many-tentacled giant squid of a company, is retooling Tennis Week, which it bought at the end of 2006. The magazine used to be a charming, informative but ultimately very sleepy little thing. Now it looks like IMG is going to morph it into something akin to US Weekly. See, IMG's burgeoning magazine division is run by a funny lady named Brandusa Niro, who semi-famously knocked off former US Weekly editrix Bonnie Fuller when the celebrity rag put out a one-off edition all about New York Fashion Week. IMG, which owns Fashion Week, hired Niro to keep putting out the giddy little papers all about who air-kissed whom on the way into the Yigal Azruel show or whatever. Now they're hoping the same sugar-coated formula can entrance tennis insiders. Racqonteur sees too many probable pitfalls to inumerate, starting with the seismic conflict of interest found in the same company that represents the players and own the tournaments publishing a piece of "journalism" about that world. But who's counting?