The Garden Tennis Affiliation has confirmed that Queen’s Membership will host WTA Tour occasions subsequent summer time, reshuffling the grass courtroom season.
The governing physique mentioned it wished to boost the profile of girls’s tennis and educate extra individuals in regards to the change, which can see the Birmingham and Eastbourne tournaments lose their standing.
The brand new ladies’s occasion will happen per week after the French Open, which means a tour-level ladies’s championship will come to London for the primary time in additional than 50 years.
This implies Edgbaston Abbey Membership in Birmingham, which has hosted WTA Tour occasions since 1982, will now host a blended males’s and girls’s second tier occasion within the second week of Roland Garros.
The mixed males’s and girls’s occasion in Nottingham shall be moved to the identical week as the lads’s championship at Queen’s College, with the mixed occasion in Eastbourne the week earlier than Wimbledon presently sitting at a two-tournament low of 250 in a sport.
Final month, the LTA revealed {that a} sticking level was the ATP’s issues over the affect of final week’s ladies’s championship on its occasion, which ranks second solely to Wimbledon on British grass courts.
LTA director of main occasions and digital Chris Pollard admitted the association might find yourself lasting only a yr if the male gamers weren’t happy.
England gamers Katie Boulter and Emma Raducanu might play at Queen’s Membership subsequent yr
“We’re completely assured that we will host the two-week occasion at Queen’s Membership,” he mentioned.
“Clearly Wimbledon proved that the grass can face up to two weeks of tennis. The impartial information we have now received does present a number of proof that the lads’s week won’t be affected in any manner, form or type.
“We’ve got had quite a few discussions with each excursions about this. (ATP) has given the inexperienced gentle to host the occasion in 2025 and we’ll proceed to have ongoing conversations with them in regards to the success of the 2025 match.
The 2025 season will mark the second full yr of the WTA’s revised calendar construction, which was launched to higher showcase prime athletes competing at prime occasions and assist sustainable long-term development
“They wish to take into consideration what occurs past 2025, however we’re nonetheless in very shut dialogue with them at this level and stay very assured that this shall be a everlasting change.”
The distinction in prize cash ranges between the excursions means the lads’s gamers will earn extra money taking part in the match, and Pollard harassed the LTA’s dedication to getting each occasions proven on free-to-air tv.
In the meantime, Surbiton’s Grade 2 occasions, which have kicked off the grass courtroom season, shall be canceled from subsequent yr, however Ilkley will proceed to host the lads’s and girls’s championships.
