The Buenos Aires Lawn Tennis Club will once again dress up to receive the best tennis in the world. And it is not a figurative or random statement: the main draw of the Argentina Open, the most traditional ATP tournament in the country that will be played from February 10 to 18, 2024 as part of the South American clay court tour, will have a stellar figure like Carlos Alcaraz, the man who will come to defend the title he won this year.
The world number two, two-time Grand Slam champion and Novak Djokovic’s main rival for the top of the ATP ranking, will be accompanied by other brilliant names: the Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka, winner of three Grand Slams and former 3rd; Francisco Cerúndolo, current 21st and number one in Argentina; the British Cameron Norrie (18th), this year’s finalist; the young Frenchman Arthur Fils (36th); Argentine number two Sebastián Báez (28th); the Pan American champion Facundo Díaz Acosta (95th); and former tournament champion Diego Schwartzman (former 8th in the world).
The fifth oldest competition on the planet – dating back to 1893 -, in its 24th consecutive edition, will also have a plus: it will be played in a completely renovated BALTC, a true revolution for a venue full of history. The Argentina Open, in fact, signed a ten-year contract with the club to enhance the emblematic site of racket sports to guarantee, in the future, the health of the event and growth in infrastructure.
“We signed a contract for 10 more years with Buenos Aires Lawn Tennis; we invested a lot of money to improve the facilities. ATP asked us to do it. We want to give a big boost to the tournament,” said Martín Jaite, the director of the Argentina Open, who also confirmed that the main stadium will increase its capacity: “We are going to have about 850 more spectators. Alcaraz’s participation raised a lot of expectations, but we also saw the need to expand because a lot of people come every year.”
Francisco Cerúndolo and Facundo Díaz Acosta, at the launch of the Argentina Open. Image: Argentina Open press.
Martín Hughes, executive of Tennium, the company that owns the competition, said: “Argentina is a country with an enormous passion for tennis and for sports in general. The company holds tournaments in many places (NdR: it also has the ATP 500 in Barcelona and the ATP 250 in Antwerp, for example) but none like Buenos Aires.”
The Uruguayan, also president of the Uruguayan Tennis Association (AUT), added regarding the future commitment to the BALTC: “The stadium and the club are a symbol of our tournament and we are very happy to have renewed for ten more years with the Buenos Aires Lawn Tennis Club”.
Cerúndolo, the Argentine ace of the competition, recalled his beginnings as a tennis follower and as the son of a former tennis player like Alejandro Cerúndolo -309th in 1982, coach of several outstanding players and Fed Cup captain in the late ’80s. “When I was little I went to the tournament a lot. My first memory is seeing Nadal-Gaudio in 2005. I always dreamed of playing it and happily I was able to play in a final. I love playing with my people and it is priceless to play in Argentina,” he said regarding that remembered quarterfinal match who has just announced that he will add to his team the prestigious Franco Davin, former coach of Juan Martín Del Potro, Gastón Gaudio and Fabio Fognini, among others.
The truncated dream of the ATP 500
“I think we have a chance to take the tournament to the ATP 500 category,” Hughes had anticipated two years ago to Página/12. “There are several ATP 250 tournaments for which the ATP generates an upgrade (improvement) to redesign the calendar. We are attentive to what may happen; Argentina is always going to be a candidate for history. We are going to be immersed headfirst in the process,” he expanded.
Last year Buenos Aires hosted Juan Martín Del Potro’s last match, a presence that generated a true revolution for the tournament. And this season he managed to bring in Carlos Alcaraz for the first time, another great coup.
Martín Hughes, Tennium executive. Image: Argentina Open.
The ATP, in congruence, finalized the reconfiguration of the calendar but rejected the update of Buenos Aires, beyond its history and its own weight. The tournaments in Dallas, Doha and Munich were left with the recategorization with a view to 2025. “It was a wrong decision by ATP; it hurt me a lot. There were conditions that were required that had to do with economics, not just with sports. We We managed to match the offer but the guarantee system and the speed of the process were not easy for us. We did not arrive on time. Although it is a dream that we have, and that at some point it will happen, we should not get obsessed. The tournament does not change much, beyond a couple of other players.
The owner of Dallas also had the Atlanta seat: he lowered the second to favor the improvement of the first. Doha and Munich, on the other hand, acquired another place to lower it and be able to upgrade. Hughes was clear about this: “The ATP wanted to have more space on the calendar and, then, asked to reduce the tournaments by 250. We could combine Antwerp with Buenos Aires but we didn’t want to; Antwerp is in another part of the year, in another region and it is a tournament that was difficult for us to get to where it is. The option was to buy another place, but inflation was generated by demand. The value of the place increased eight times; we decided to bid but so did Doha and Munich.”
[email protected]
2023-12-19 23:08:41
#Alcaraz #helm #Cerúndolo #local #figure #Argentina #Open #luxury #draw #number #world #Argentine #leader #animate #Buenos #Aires #ATP
