Asian Tennis Tour relaunches, first tournament scheduled for April

With this relaunch, ATT will have events in the $3000, $6000 and $10,000 prize-money categories.

The tournament will also be having $3000 closed national level tournaments offering international points.

The Asian Tennis Tour (ATT) is being revived, with the first tournament in Pune in April, to help safeguard the interest of the players in the region, in the wake of the uncertainties surrounding the professional Tour.

With its relaunch, the ATT will have events in the $3000, $6000 and $10,000 prize money categories. Apart from this there will also be $3000 closed national level tournaments offering international points.

"The recently launched ITF World Tennis Tour, the cap in ATP/WTA points at the lower level tournaments along with reduced number of professional tournaments at the lower end are all quite disruptive changes, filled with uncertainties and doubts about the future of our sport," said a communication addressed to the Asian players, assuring them of remedial measures.

The circuit also aspires to provide wild cards for pro-circuit tournaments based on ATT rankings, apart from exciting possibilities of future tie-up with the Grand Slams.

The $3000 and $6000 events will have only singles, in draws of 32, while the $10,000 events can have either a draw of 16 or 32, and will also feature doubles.

The tournaments will have the qualifying event on Sunday and Monday, followed by the main event till Saturday.

Entry fee will be $20 for the $10,000 events, whereas it will be $10 for the qualifying events in other categories and $20 for the main event.

There will be special berths for junior players, apart from the wild cards.

The champion will get 50, 75 and 100 points in the ATT international events in the $3000, $6000 and $10,000 sections respectively.

The champion in the closed national event will get 40 points. There will be a cap on the number of closed national events that  a country can host in a season, but there will be no such restriction for the international events.

The singles champion will get $1700 and runner-up $1000 in the $10,000 events, if it s a draw of 16. For the 32-player draw, the champion and runner-up will get $1500 and $900.

The Asian Tennis Federation (ATF) has sought the players in the region to apply for the registration and get APIN online from the ATT website.