RYAN Sandilands is a man on a mission. There are less than six months to go before Singapore stages its biggest professional tennis event in history, and the 41-year-old Scot is determined to make sure that word of the event - the BNP Paribas Women's Tennis Association (WTA) Championships - gets out to the masses.

Mr Sandilands is the new chief executive officer for the WTA's operations in the Asia-Pacific region, having packed his bags and moved his family from Beijing - where he was the managing director of sports marketing agency Octagon - to Singapore last December. He says that his new team at the WTA is pulling out all the stops to make the first edition of the US$6.5 million Championships nothing short of a "knock-out success".

The world's top eight singles players and doubles teams will be jetting in for the season-ending event, set to take place at the Singapore Sports Hub from Oct 17-26. The exact line-up of players will only be confirmed a month or so before that, but could well include the likes of Li Na, Serena Williams, Agnieszka Radwanska and even Martina Hingis, the former world number one who is back on tour after her retirement U-turn.