After several months full of rumors about Saudi Arabia’s entry into the world of tennis and its willingness to expand tournaments in its country, the ATP is making a radical change to the men’s circuit calendar for the next 2025 season.
Just a couple of hours before the structural changes were officially announced by the ATP, tournaments such as the ATP 250 in Estoril announced that it is not part of the provisional 2025 calendar, although the intention of the event is to fit in in some way in the next versions. The Portuguese event is not the only one affected.
The main changes to the new calendar are:
- Extension of the Canadian and Cincinnati Masters 1000
These two Masters 1000 that are held in the summer on the American hard court tour will now be 12 days long, joining the other five Masters 1000 that are contested with this extended format. Along with those in Rome, Madrid and Shanghai, these events will now have more importance in the calendar as they have a longer duration and will now have 96 players in their main draws.
- Increase in ATP 500 tournaments: now there are 16
As announced a few weeks ago, the tournaments in Dallas, Qatar and Munich were promoted in category, with 16 events now making up the list. The ATP gives more importance to the ATP 500 by having weeks with tournaments in this division taking place in parallel
- Clay and grass tour changes
The Hamburg tournament will be held in the month of May in the week before Roland Garros, while the ATP 250 in Estoril disappears from the calendar for now. On the other hand, the Argentine tournament in Córdoba loses its license, which now belongs to Mallorca. The Spanish tournament will now be played in the week before Wimbledon as a preparatory event for the third Grand Slam of the year. Another calendar change sees the Los Cabos tournament move from February to July.
Andrea Gaudenzi, president of the ATP, explains the main reasons for these changes to the men’s tour calendar: “Next season will see even more improvements to the premium product of the ATP Tour through a streamlined calendar. This is fundamental for everything which we have been building under OneVision, which ultimately aims to create the best possible experience for our fans. Last season we broke new ground, welcoming a record five million fans to our events. This is just an indication of the positive trend that our sport is taking, and we believe that there is still incredible potential to be exploited. This is a provisional calendar in which they continue to look for possibilities to rearrange the Estoril tournament. What is known for sure is that the 2025 ATP Finals will be in Turin, and the Next Gen ATP Finals, in Jeddah.
2024-03-22 13:16:33
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