In the game of Tennis, tournament structure is always based on gender (male/female) and the total no of players. Usually, tournaments consist of Men (singles, doubles, and mixed doubles), women (singles, doubles, and mixed doubles).
The groups of players are made according to the age limits like upper and lower age groups for youngsters, seniors respectively like Les Petits & many others. Some tournaments disable people like Deaf and Wheelchair tennis.
ATP World Tour Finals (Top 8):
ATP World Tour Final is also called Barclays ATP World Tour Finals because of the sponsorship. In November of every year, this tournament is held London (Arena. It is played on hard courts indoors. These finals are basically the ending of the championships of the ATP World Tour which consist of the top 8 players (Singles) and teams (Doubles). These players and teams are ranked by the ATP.
In the ATP World Tour Finals, the two groups are of the top eight players. These groups have to play 3 rounds against each other to reach the semi-finals and then semi-finals on the basis of their best record. The winners of the finals Champion and are ranked with 1500 points.
Grand Slam (GS) tournaments:
The GS Tournaments are most important all over the world which consists of US Open, Wimbledon, Australian Open, and French Open. The ITF synchronizes and arranges these tournaments every year.
These tournaments require finance at a large scale and also offer large prize money to the winners at the end of the events. The number of players in these tournaments is limited to 128.
Men GS tournaments play matches set of Best of Five and the women Best of three. In GS Tournaments the juniors and wheelchairs tennis tournaments are held combined with their own peculiarity e.g. At Wimbledon, it is necessary for players to wear white and a famous tennis player Agassi who didn’t play tennis at Wimbledon because of its white dress condition.
Australian Open:
The Australian Open is held in January in Melbourne, Australia. In 1905, the Australian Open tournament was held. It is the first tournament among all 4 tournaments of GS events. It includes the Singles, Doubles and Mixed doubles (Men) and Singles, Doubles, Mixed doubles (Women) and championships of Juniors and exhibition and wheelchair and other events. Australian Open tournaments are played on indoor hard courts because of wet weather or heats.
French Open:
The French Open tennis tournament was held in Paris. It starts at the end of May and the start of June. This tennis tournament is a clay-court tournament all over the world. It is ranked at no 2 in the GS tournaments. French Open tournament is the largest tournament of clay court that ends in the clay court of the spring season. French tournament is the most required tournament all over the world because of the 5 sets of Singles (Men) and no tiebreak.
Wimbledon:
Wimbledon or British Open tennis tournament is a very old, most important and biggest tournament. This tournament is held in London. It was first started in 1877. Wimbledon tournament is played on the grass, that’s why it is called lawn tennis. This tournament starts at end of the June and start of the July every year. It is consists of Men and woman’s singles matches.
Wimbledon‘s dress code is white and it is necessary to wear white. Wimbledon’s Court‘s roof is retractable to save the time of the players in terms of rain.
US Open Tennis Championships:
The US Open is a modern form of old tennis tournament which was started in 1881. It is ranked as 4th in the GS Tournaments list. This game is a hard court tennis game and includes a tiebreak except for the last set of the game. US Open starts at the end of August and start of September with a period of two weeks every year. These weeks come earlier and past than Labor Day. The US Open tournament includes 5 different championships of men (Singles) & women ((Singles), men (doubles) and women (doubles), and men (mixed doubles) women (mixed doubles), wheelchairs tournament, senior tournament, junior tournament.
USTA a non-profit organization that owns this US Tennis Championship and manages these tournaments ‘events every year. Their ticked are very costly which helps USTA to promote the US Open.
ATP 1000 series:
In 1990 the ATP 1000 started as the tour of ATP with carrying the Grand Prix series of 1790 to 1989. From 1993 to 1999, the events of the ATP Championship were held for one week for 3 years of the beginning. This series was named as Tennis Masters Series. In 2004, the name of the series was replaced as ATP Masters Series.
The ATP1000 series is held in North America, Europe, and Asia. It gives the players more ranking points than other tournaments of all over the world but not more than GS tournaments. ATP 1000 series consists of 9 tournaments in all. Winning each of these adds 1000 points to the winner’s tally hence the name. The tournaments included in this series are Indian Wells, Paris, Cincinnati, Shanghai, Madrid, Miami, Monte Carlo, Rome, and Canada Masters Open.
ATP World Tour 500 series:
Grand Prix Super Series’ new name is ATP World Tour 500 series. It was also called as Championship Series. This tennis tournament comes after the ATP 1000 series and all 4 GS tournaments. This tournament for men is ranked as the 3rd highest tier.
The ATP World Tour 500 series consists of 11 tournaments, 500 points of ranking for wining the singles champion events. Tournaments draw for singles are 56, 48 & 32, and 16 and draws for doubles are 24. It has the condition for the players who lead, must enter in as a minimum of 4 events of 500 series if they don’t fill the condition, they get 0 scores against their shorts. Tournaments included in this tier are Basel, Rotterdam, Tokyo, Memphis, Dubai, Washington, Acapulco, Beijing, Barcelona, Valencia, and Hamburg open.
ATP World Tour 250 series:
The ATP World Tour 250 series started in 2009 by ATP. It is the continued series of the ATP World Tour and ranked as the lowest tier of the ATP tour. It consists of a total number of 40 tournaments with 250 points of ranking for winning the single tournament. It tournaments draw for singles are 32 & 28 and for double are 16. AEGON championship draws for singles are 56 and for doubles are 24. Important tournaments of this series include Nice, Chennai, Sydney, San Jose, Halle, Queens, New Port, and Stuttgart open.
2nd Tier Tennis:
Before 2009, ATP Challenger Tour was called ATP Challenger Series. Men’s tennis of top tier is called the ATP World Tour. The 2nd tier of men’s tennis is Challenger Tour, the 3rd tier of men’s tennis tournaments is the ITF Men’s Circuit, and the final tier of men’s tournaments in international competition. The ATP manages the ATP Challenger and the successful players with enough points for ranking in ATP Challenger and become qualified for the entry of ATP World Tour tournaments.
Ranking points and prize money award:
ATP Challenger Tour awards the players with grand prize money. Maximum prize money is $35,000 and minimum is $150,000 plus accommodation & food
Hospitality is provided according to the players ranking points like 75 points to 125 points for $35 and $150 respectively.
ATP level tournaments give the winners a maximum of $400K prize money and 250 points to 2000 points.
The point of the players is totaled on the previous rankings of the 52 weeks and given week. If a player got 400 points in the previous 52 weeks, his rank would be approximately at 100th position. 200 points for the 200th position, 100 points for the 350th position, and 50 points for the 500th.
3rd Tier Tennis:
The ITF Men’s Circuit is tennis tournament series that is owned and managed by the ITF. It signifies the lowest step of the men’s tennis ranking. ITF tournaments include the ranking of the ATP which helps in the progress of the younger players’ for the ATP Challenger Tour fully. Therefore, every tennis player has to spend time in the Men’s Circuit. This ITF Men’s Circuit is satellite-based and provides flexibility to the players and held for more than four weeks. At the end of 1990, the ITF brought the new feature for overtime tournaments and its ratio greater than before till 2007. After the elimination of satellites, players won the titles of careers and improved their ranks through the feature tournaments. Futures tournaments include singles and doubles and are held for one week. In 2008, the prize money for tournaments was USD 10, 000 or USD 15, 000. And for some tournament accommodation facility is also provided to the players.
WTA Tournaments:
WTA stands for Women’s Tennis Association which was established in 1973. The founder of WTA was Billie Jean King. It is a worldwide women’s tennis player tour and also the part of the ATP.
Categories of Tournaments:
In 2009, the current WTA tournament formation was introduced. Leading Tournaments were formed from the combination of earlier events 1st tier 1 & 2nd tier and International Tournaments were formed with the combination of 3rd tier and 4th tier.
Total no of 4 GS tournaments:
End year championships which is the champion of WTA Tour
Premier Mandatory is formed with a combination of 4 tournaments of male tennis players and held in Miami, Beijing, Indian Wells, and Madrid.
International tournaments include 31 tournaments and its prize money for each tournament is USD 220,000. These tournaments are held in Bali. Now, it is held in Sofia and its prize money is USD 600,000.
The Premier tournament includes the 10 events and its prize money is a maximum of USD 600,000 and a minimum of USD 1 million. Prize money
Challenger tournaments started in 2011, with 3 tournaments and prize money of USD 125,000.
WTA Championship:
This is a tennis tournament which is held yearly for a women tennis player at the end of the year. This championship is held for the highest-ranking players. Many things about the WTA championship have been changed since 1972 like the city, the total number of players, and the month of the tournament. In 2003 the rule about the player is that two groups are made of 8 players and 4 for doubles.
The WTA Tournament is the most important and placed in 5th position of GS tournaments It prize money is very large and points for ranking are after the GS tournaments.
Martina Navratilova is the famous and top player of the WTA Championship with 8 titles of singles and 12 titles of doubles.
Fed Cup:
Fed Cup is the most important competition among women tennis players. It was introduced in 1963 as a celebration of the ITF’s 50th Anniversary. It was named as Federation Cup. Seeding decision for four nations in the world cup is made according to Fed Cup rules.
In the Zonal Group, teams are divided into pools, then they will play in one round against each other. There are always 2 teams which are encouraged and promoted from Africa Group I and Europe Group of the world cup of that year and form America group 1 one team is gone to the world cup.
Davis Cup:
The Davis Cup is the most important and famous men’s international tennis event. ITF manages the Davis Cup Championship. It is held yearly in which teams are playing for their countries to make a big success against their competitors. The Davis Cup championship was started in 1900. At that time it a great challenge between the American team and the British team.
From 2007 total no of 137 countries participated in this championship tournament. The USA has been most successful in the Davis Cup Championship history who has won a total of 32 tournaments with 29 times runners-up. Australia is on 2nd number by winning 28 tournaments at 4 events against New Zealand with 19-time runners up. The current titleholder of the Davis Cup in the Czech Republic won the title against Spain. Every year 16 best teams from all over the world are selected to participate and play for the Davis Cup. Countries that lose the 1st round have to play against the continental zones. Teams who win World Group enter the quarter-finals. Countries win more than 3 ties to claim of Davis Cup Champions.
