South American tennis is on the verge of receiving important news regarding the development of ATP championships to increase the number of competitions to be held in the region with Chile playing an important role.
The South American region will receive a circuit of 36 competitions starting in February 2021, which will have 12 Challengers, 12 Futures, 12 Futures for women and a Masters. The ideologue of this organization is the former captain of the Chilean Davis Cup team, Horacio de La Peña. The Argentine managed that the multinational Unilever became the main sponsor of the tour.
The Argentine presented the project to one of the organizers of the ATP 250 from Santiago and got the positive response from Unilever who will contribute more than a million dollars to finance the tour that will be called “Dove Men + Care South American Legion Circuit”.
This new tour will begin on February 15 in Concepción when a Challenger is played in the city of the Bio-Bío Region. The assembly of the calendar will be made taking into account the geographical aspects. For example, a round of tournaments will be held in Argentina, Uruguay and Chile; or in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru; or in Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia.
Tournaments will be held in brick dust, but the possibility of organizing contests on other surfaces is being studied and they will try to do at least two tournaments in the same place in consecutive weeks to maintain the sanitary cordon. Likewise, the first versions will be made without an audience, but this will depend on the local governments.
