From the flip of the millennium, big-ticket tennis in India throughout the first week of the yr has been a close to fixed.
But for the Covid-related cancellation in 2021 and the shifting of the dates to early February in 2020 and 2022, both Chennai (18 occasions) or Pune (5) has ushered in the season forward of the Australian Open.
The yr 2024, nevertheless, is the first with out the annual dose of top-level tennis in India, with the nation’s lone ATP 250 occasion now changed by the Bank of China Hong Kong Tennis Open.
The five-year contract the organisers of the Tata Open Maharashtra in Pune had inked with homeowners IMG and RISE Worldwide ended with the 2023 version. A considerably larger monetary outlay as a pre-condition for renewal proved the undoing.
Tennis legend Vijay Amritraj, additionally the president of the Tamil Nadu Tennis Association (TNTA), felt that India’s absence from tennis’ international map will take the sheen out of the sport in the nation.
“We need a crown jewel,” the 70-year-old advised The Hindu. “Not just one in my opinion. We should be able to do two or three and make it like an Indian swing. Chennai has been the home of tennis. There is Kolkata, Maharashtra and a lot of other places who can do it.”
Crucial function
Though the presence of an ATP 250 occasion in India hasn’t helped enhance the requirements of males’s singles tennis — Somdev Devvarman stays the final Indian to have reached a singles Tour-level closing at residence (2009) — doubles star and World No.3 Rohan Bopanna felt that such tournaments can present a fillip to many a budding profession.
In truth, Bopanna’s first Tour-level closing got here in Chennai in 2006 alongside Prakash Amritraj, and he has received three of his 24 Tour titles in India, all of them with Indian companions (2017: Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan, 2019: Divij Sharan, 2022: Ramkumar Ramanathan).
“It had a significant role in my journey as a tennis player,” Bopanna mentioned. “I qualified for singles twice there, and making the final with Prakash was a great feeling. And the Indians who won with me benefitted from it.
“When it was in Chennai, people from Coorg could even drive down. For your families and friends to watch you play at the highest level was great. You don’t get that often. We should have kept the tournament.“
The flux
The loss comes at a time when there is a significant churn in tennis. In a calendar that is already bursting at the seams, cash-rich Saudi Arabia, which is hosting the annual Next Gen ATP Finals until 2027, is reportedly looking to add a start-of-the-season ATP Masters 1000 event.
Starting 2023, the Masters tournaments in Madrid, Rome and Shanghai have joined Indian Wells and Miami into becoming bloated 10-day affairs (96 players singles draws), leaving very little wriggle room for newer and smaller participants. Cincinnati and Canadian Open are set to follow suit, further shrinking the windows.
It also doesn’t help that tennis is heavily concentrated in the Americas (North and South), Europe and Australia, leaving just 10 of 67 Tour-level competitions in 2024 for Asia and Africa. Even in Asia, four are in China (Chengdu, Zhuhai, Beijing, Shanghai) and two in West Asia (Doha and Dubai), with Tokyo, Hong Kong and Astana hosting one each. The whole of Africa has one ATP 250 — in Marrakech (Morocco).
“It’s very important for the ATP and the WTA to pay attention to parts of the world where tennis needs to grow,” mentioned Amritraj. “We are the second most global sport after football, but Africa has no tennis at all and in Asia it’s either China or the Middle East. So we need events in countries like India to keep the interest alive and for tennis to continue to be global.”
Skyrocketing prices
Economics additionally performs an enormous function. While the whole monetary dedication at the final version in Pune in 2023 was $713,495, a determine not too far from the $739,945 that Hong Kong has dedicated, there are hidden prices that skew the stability in favour of the wealthy.
If you lease the match, like Pune did from homeowners IMG and RISE Worldwide, you must pay a hefty promoter charge, which regularly runs into lots of of hundreds of {dollars}. Then there’s the look cash that organisers could must shell out in the event that they wish to appeal to the greatest gamers.
“Prize money is not a problem, but the other costs like promoter fee became unreasonable for us,” mentioned Sunder Iyer, secretary of the Maharashtra State Lawn Tennis Association (MSLTA) which performed the Tata Open Maharashtra.
“Participation fee depends on what you want the tournament to be. Whether you want to invite big stars and increase ticketing revenue or do the tournament for the betterment of our [Indian] players. In 2023, we didn’t pay any participation fee. It’s always a trade off and that is something the tournaments have to decide.”
