Five year plan for Hyderabad Open

Five-year plan for WTA event


Hyderabad, Feb. 20: The annual WTA Tour tennis championship?s Indian stop will remain in the city at least for the next five years with the tournament titled ?Hyderabad Open,? Sports Authority of Andhra Pradesh Vice-Chairman and Managing Director G Ashok Kumar said on Friday.

?For the next five years it will be titled ?Hyderabad Open? and the Chief Minister has given us the nod to go ahead in a big way,? Ashok said.
Ashok said planning for the next edition would start as early as this June, when the Wimbledon championships are held. He said attempts would be made for player?s tie-up during the All England Club event.

?This also gives us a lot of time to plan corporate sponsorship,? Ashok said.
Speaking about the Hyderabad Open, Tournament Director CGK Bhupathi said: ?We are already enjoying a good entry list and hope to make it even better in the future.?

Thanking CM Chandrababu Naidu for the support, he said (event organizer) Globosport would increase the level of the tournament to augment Naidu?s dream of making Hyderabad the sports capital of India. With two to four top-20 players besides at least one former Grand Slam champion planned in the future draws, ?it should be a full house at the SAAP Tennis Complex,? Bhupathi assured.

Talking about the Indian angle, Bhupathi said the Hyderabad Open was a good opportunity for upcoming players. ?This year, 11 Indian girls could play in the qualifiers and two (Sania Mirza and Isha Lakhani) in the main draw, courtesy the wild cards, which is a dream on the WTA Tour,? he said. ?If we have six Sanias on the court, the stadium will be full,? he signed off.

:bounce: Good news for all Indian especially Sania Mirza!! :)

Speaking about the Hyderabad Open, Tournament Director CGK Bhupathi said: ?We are already enjoying a good entry list and hope to make it even better in the future.?

A good entry list this year, really???

Not really .. But the tournament offices always say they had a good field, though I am sure they know they need to get much better in the future. It looked somewhat better at first with about 16 top-100 players in the list .. After all the last minute withdrawlas, only about 10 or so top-100 players were there, which was not very good .. Can't attract top-30 types to Tier-4 events without the apperance mopney .. Considering that they had ZERO money to give out this time (and actually had no budget for even billboards and newspaper advertisements in Hyderabad), they have got to be happy for having hung in there through the worst time. Now they have a title sponsor, and depending on state elections, the government seems to be fully behind for further support too. They have already said that they WILL bring some top-20 players next year - money will talk and there IS a lot of that in Hyderabad. It was just a matter of bringing it out .. Local girl Sania winning the doubles title to create more excitement will help too ..

Anyway, they have said that they will look to upgrade it to grade-III within a few years etc, so things are looking up.

Jay

A good entry list this year, really???
Fully agree with you nitsansh! If someone like Sarah Peer could qualify in and actually win a round in the main draw, it had to be an abysmal entry list.

5 more titles for Pratt :)

Good news for India tennis! :bounce:

Fully agree with you nitsansh! If someone like Sarah Peer could qualify in and actually win a round in the main draw, it had to be an abysmal entry list.
Shahar (not Sarah!) will be in the MD next year, I can guaranty you that!