[tennisIlove09]

Pacific Life Open Expands


Photo By Cynthia Lum By Adrianna Outlaw
10/22/2003

The Pacific Life Open will bring men and women together next year. For the first time in tournament history, the men's main draw will be staged the time as the women's main draw in the first week of the event, scheduled for March 8th-21st at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.

The men's draw has expanded to mirror the women's — 96 singles players, 32 doubles teams and 48 singles qualifiers. Tickets for all 20 sessions of the 2004 Pacific Life Open are on sale now. For more information call (800) 999-1585 or visit the Pacific Life Open web site.

The Pacific Life Open and the Nasdaq-100 Open are two of the few North American tournaments, aside from the U.S. Open, that feature men's and women's fields. In March, Lleyton Hewitt crushed Gustavo Kuerten, 6-1, 6-1, to successfully defend his Pacific Life Open men's title. Kim Clijsters, Hewitt's girlfriend, defeated Lindsay Davenport, 6-4, 7-5, to claim the women's Pacific Life Open crown.

 

[harloo]

I guess they want to save money. Hmm......interesting.

 

[Tratree]

No, they're doing the same thing Miami does. Both are now 96 draws. I'm glad they doing it, because in previous years they crammed most of the women's matches in the first week and weekend and then you had like eight womens matches all the second week.

 

[Brian Stewart]

This will allow them to spread the matches out better. It would be nice if the TV coverage would also expand to the first week, but given that they're not doing it for Miami, I doubt it will happen here either.

 

[ys]

Great! This tournament is just getting better every year. Probably my favourite tournament in USA, after US Open that is..

 

[~ The Leopard ~]

Nice.

 

[lizchris]

This will allow them to spread the matches out better. It would be nice if the TV coverage would also expand to the first week, but given that they're not doing it for Miami, I doubt it will happen here either.

Don't bet on it. This tournament will come on during the end of college basketball season, so you will be lucky to see decent coverage.