ATP 250’s absence from Indian calendar will be felt in more ways than one

Though the tennis almanac is bursting at the seams, with the season stretching from January to November, and there are newer tournaments being proposed, the sport’s global footprint is shrinking

FILE PHOTO: Vijay Amritraj at the KSLTA tennis courts the Bengaluru Open 2023 ATP Challenger event. | Photo Credit: MURALI KUMAR K/THE HINDU

From the turn of the millennium, big-ticket tennis in India during the first week of the year has been a near constant.

But for the Covid-related cancellation in 2021 and the shifting of the dates to early February in 2020 and 2022, either Chennai (18 times) or Pune (five) has ushered in the season ahead of the Australian Open.

The year 2024, however, is the first without the annual dose of top-level tennis in India, with the country’s lone ATP 250 event now replaced 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 owners IMG and RISE Worldwide ended with the 2023 edition. A significantly bigger financial outlay as a pre-condition for renewal proved the undoing.

Tennis legend Vijay Amritraj, also the president of the Tamil Nadu Tennis Association (TNTA), felt that India’s absence from tennis’ global map will take the sheen out of the sport in the country.

“We need a crown jewel,” the 70-year-old told  Sportstar.

“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.”

Though the presence of an ATP 250 event in India hasn’t helped improve the standards of men’s singles tennis — Somdev Devvarman remains the last Indian to have reached a singles Tour-level final at home (2009) — doubles star and World No.3 Rohan Bopanna felt that such tournaments can provide a fillip to many a budding career.

In fact, Bopanna’s first Tour-level final came in Chennai in 2006 alongside Prakash Amritraj, and he has won three of his 24 Tour titles in India, all of them with Indian partners (2017: Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan, 2019: Divij Sharan, 2022: Ramkumar Ramanathan).

“It had a significant role in my journey as a tennis player,” Bopanna said. “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 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,” said 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.”

Economics also plays a big role. While the total financial commitment at the last edition in Pune in 2023 was $713,495, a figure not too far from the $739,945 that Hong Kong has committed, there are hidden costs that skew the balance in favour of the rich.

If you lease the tournament, like Pune did from owners IMG and RISE Worldwide, you have to pay a hefty promoter fee, which often runs into hundreds of thousands of dollars. Then there is the appearance money that organisers may have to shell out if they want to attract the best players.

“Prize money is not a problem, but the other costs like promoter fee became unreasonable for us,” said Sunder Iyer, secretary of the Maharashtra State Lawn Tennis Association (MSLTA) which conducted 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.”