Pune: The fifth edition of the Tata Open Maharashtra is scheduled to conclude here on Saturday and with that it will end the organisers, Maharashtra State Lawn Tennis Association’s (MSLTA) deal with the owners of the event to organise it in Pune.
The event is owned by IMG and in its earlier avatar was held at Chennai till 2017. It was moved to Pune in 2018 with the Maharashtra government and Tata Motors supporting it.
With speculation rife that the event may see another venue change, the organisers of South Asia’s only ATP 250 event expressed confidence that they will manage to hold onto the event and host it in Pune for the next five years.
“The Government of Maharashtra is committed to hosting such big tournaments in the state because Maharashtra has a legacy of organising such events. They have been supporting this tournament fully so we are the strong contenders to continue having this tournament for the next five years. We also had an internal discussion with the concerned heads and we will go all out,” Tournament Director Prashant Sutar, who is also the Chairman of MSLTA, told the media on Friday.
Talking about the significance of conducting such world-class tournaments, MSLTA Secretary Sundar Iyer, who is also the Joint Secretary of All India Tennis Association, said: “We were looking at hosting the women’s Challengers event in Nagpur, unfortunately, we couldn’t do it because we didn’t have the courts that fit the measurement. However, we could easily decide that we are redoing the courts as we are now aided with the facilities which were earlier not there. While organising a tournament (ATP-250) of this level, we can now take faster decisions based on what we are already executing at the Tata Open Maharashtra.”
The prestigious tournament is owned by IMG and managed by RISE Worldwide.
“It is just not this ATP event; we have done a lot of things around this Championship in the last five years. Right now, we have the players from the districts who are already at the top, in the national rankings. The savings that we have made from this ATP event have been utilised in developing the infrastructure,” Sutar added.
The finals of the fifth edition of the Tata Open Maharashtra are scheduled for Saturday.
In the last five years, the event has attracted some big stars. This year World No. 17 Marin Cilic was among 17 Top-100 players in the highly competitive singles field. The doubles event witnessed the participation of the former World No. 1 and three-time Grand Slam champion pair of Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury and Indian tennis ace Rohan Bopanna among others.
–IANS