ATP Calendar Extended By One Week

Written by: Staff on 21st January 2013

ATP Calendar Extended By One Week

epa03060141 Shadow of Andy Murray of Great Britain in action during a practice session ahead of the Australian Open Grand Slam tennis tournament in Melbourne, Australia, 15 January 2012. The Australian Open, the first Grand Slam tennis tournament of the year, will begin on 16 January. EPA/HOW HWEE YOUNG |

Even though they have consistently asked for a shorter season, the top ATP players decided to slightly reverse their position and requested that an extra week be added to the 2014 ATP World Tour in between the BNP Paribas Masters in Paris/Bercy and the season-ending Barclays ATP World Tour Finals at The O2 in London.

While many of the middle to lower ranked players were said to be less than thrilled with the move, it’s the top players who move the needle in the sport and most of them felt that playing back-to-back Masters Series was too big of a task.

“Following careful consideration and feedback from our tournament and player members, the prevailing consensus for the benefit of our key stakeholders was to reinstate a week’s break in between the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event in Paris and our season-ending event in London,” Brad Drewett, ATP Executive Chairman & President, said.

The ATP World Tour Finals will end on November 16 in 2014, as opposed to November 10 this year.

The extra week was also supported by the BNP Paribas Masters in Paris/Bercy organizers themselves, as they had complained at the end of last year that too many top players were pulling out or retiring from their event because they wanted to save their energy for London. Consequently, they asked for the tournament to be moved to February.

But there ended up being no need to do so, as Drewett’s plan to move the entire Latin American “Golden Swing” to late November and December was shot down by the players. Apparently there were some Latin American tournament directors who were enthusiastic about the idea, as they felt that if they had a stand alone mini tour in December they might have a better chance of recruiting more notable players. Currently, that swing is played in February and competes against tournaments in Europe and the United States.

But the players did want to allow the ATP to essentially become a year-round circuit and said no.

The four-week Latin American swing in February 2014 will highlighted by a new ATP World Tour 500 event in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. That new event was created when tournament owners in Memphis sold their 500 sanction to Rio, and took the 250 sanction it owned San Jose, moved it to Memphis and killed the San Jose tournament, which will close its doors after it is played in two weeks’ time.

Memphis and Delray Beach are now the only two US tournaments in February.

However, the ATP 500 event in Acapulco, Mexico, will move from clay to hard courts, leading into the Masters 1000 event at Indian Wells, California, which could allow it to attract better fields.

Interestingly, the new tournament in Bogota, Colombia, which recently purchased the 250 sanction from Los Angeles, was not placed in February along with the rest of the Latin American swing, but will still be played in mid- July in between Newport and Atlanta.

©Daily Tennis News Wire

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