Madrid, as most of you know, was the brainchild of Ion Tiriac. That he was able to turn his vision into reality ought to give you a pretty good idea of the degree of the clout and expertise - promotional, financial and political - that this most enigmatic of tennis impresarios has accumulated. Tiriac himself probably would bridle at the suggestion that he's a deft politician, and that would be justified. For unlike some other event-shapers and infighters, his approach has relied less on schmoozing, manipulating and relationship-building than a healthy regard for that simple and vulgar maxim: Money talks, BS walks.

Tiriac has spent his life as the black sheep in tennis; as a player, this reformed ice-hockey star from gritty, industrial, Brasov, Romania, never came anywhere near a Top 10 ranking in singles, but he was better than No. 840, which is where he ranks today on Forbes magazine's list of the world's ... billionaires.

Yes, tennis - and banking, car dealerships, insurance agencies, commercial building and leasing operations, and various other business interests have been very good to Tiriac. And Tiriac, in turn, has been very good to tennis. As he recently told Chris Clarey of the New York Times: “This is the only business I’m truly at home. I might be a banker or have a huge insurance company and so on, but those are specialists that I hired as partners to get into those businesses. I don’t want to be very arrogant, but respectfully, I say in tennis I did everything a human being can do: from player (Tiriac and his first protege, Ilie Nastase, won the French Open doubles in 1970) to coach (in addition to Nastase, he's coached, among others, Guillermo Vilas and Boris Becker) to manager to organizer.”

By "organizer," Tiriac means "promoter." His expertise brought us, among other events, the star-studded WTA event that once took place in Stuttgart, as well as the ATP Tour Championships in Hannover, Germany, and the since-abandoned Grand Slam Cup in Munich. He still has an ATP 250 event, the Romanian Open, and, of course, the Mutua Madrilena Madrid Open, or Madrid Masters.

I had a long conversation with Tiriac a few weeks ago, which was the basis for the profile that runs in the current issue of Tennis magazine. Trying to explain why, having become one of the most successful men on the planet, Tiriac still can't keep his hands off small potatoes (tennis),  he told me: "For me and others like me (meaning eastern Europeans living under the Communist thumb) tennis was water in the desert. In my time (the 1960s and early 1970s) 99.9 percent of the people in my part of the world did not the same privilege as I - to be an athlete, to travel, the see the world, and also to come home again. Tennis made my free. My friend, I cannot forget where I am coming from."

Slideshow   Grand Slam champs Roger Federer joined Andre Agassi and other legendary players with singles titles at all four Slams. NBCSports.com

In other words, he grew up when having even small potatoes was a big deal, and he's never quite gotten over the joy of having them.

It's mildly ironic that this forbidding man (a writer once described Tiriac's head as something found on Easter Island) who as a player was without doubt one of the greatest - and most despised - of gamesmen, would be the man to issue such a heartfelt, accurate testimonial. It reminds us of what what tennis has done for so many people, in times more difficult than our own and in varying contexts,for over a century now. If you want to judge sports by the influence they have on the lives and fortunes of people, tennis scores high.

Tiriac is proud of his abilities as a promoter. He was a guest at the Super Bowl here in the U.S. earlier this year, and he was astonished by the relative lack of sophistication at various functions and hospitality venues (of course, some aspects of American life won't ever be understood by elite Europeans). By contrast, Tiriac has always taken pains to provide champagne-class hospitality; that, as much as anything, has become a trademark of his promotions, and it helps explain why his Madrid tournament is considered as much of a fixture on Madrid's social calendar as the athletic one.

While obsessions with status and the trappings of luxury leave me cold, Tiriac's target audience of business class clients and corporate entertainers embrace them. Ask Tiriac about the sight of empty seats in Madrid's "Magic Box" venue and he shrugs it off, noting that his luxury boxes and premium subscription plans to the Madrid tournament are overbooked. That's where the real money is. I wouldn't be surprised if Tiriac just gave away the tickets to the cheap seats, and if he doesn't, it might be only because crowding at the site would be unwelcome. Like most impresarios, Tiriac knows what he needs in order to succeed; then he figures out what people who can fill that need want and gives it to them.

Slideshow   The Week in Sports Pictures A kayaker flips out, a racehorse eyes the Triple Crown and more. more photos

Although Tiriac claims to have no beef with the establishment - he's certainly taken more than one licking from the folks at the International Olympic Committee and the International Tennis Federation - you can sense in the resigned tone of this nakedly commercial man an ongoing, simmering discontent with the status quo. Although he's over 70, he still has a very active mind and a healthy willingness to ask, "what if?" - as if, what if there were no unwritten rule saying that the world can have only four Grand Slam events? What if we changed the rules to make tennis more exciting? What if we distill to product to present just its essence at the most critical moments of the year?

Establishment types have always considered Tiriac a threat, and they've accused him in the past of trying to horn into their template with a fifth Grand Slam. He told me he has no issue with the four majors - in essence, he insists, they are what they are. But there's a hint of fatalistic contempt in his voice when he adds, "Let them do the same they've been doing for another hundred years."

Translation: Why not change, if it makes sense?

For more news from TENNIS.com, click here.