The Scoop
Acura Classic likely to leave San Diego after '07 By Matthew Cronin, TennisReporters.net
The Acura Classic, a tennis fixture in San
Diego since 1984, has sold its Tier I designation back to the Sony
Ericsson WTA Tour and will more than likely see its last year of play
in 2007, TennisReporters.net has learned.
Co-owners Raquel Giscafre and Jane Stratton had put the well-attended
tournament at the La Costa Resort for sale and were apparently unable
to find buyers. The tournament would have been forced to leave La Costa
after 2007 anyway as the resort owners no longer desired to have the event
there.
Giscafre and Stratton briefly looked into getting financing for a new
stadium in San Diego, but we unsuccessful.
The WTA, which is reconfiguring its calendar for 2010, stepped in and
bought the Tier I designation and will likely sell it to Cincinnati, which
is looking to host a combined men’s and women’s tournament
the same week that the women’s Canadian Open is now played.
The tour is looking to establish three “A-level” tournaments
during the US Open Series, one that is almost sure to be Montreal, another
that could be Cincinnati and another that could be Los Angeles or Stanford.
The tour will opening up bidding on this new “A” designation,
where the tournaments will be asked to provide at least $ 1 million
in prize money in exchange for an increased player commitment from
the tour’s
stars.
Currently, the Tier II tournaments at Stanford and Los Angeles offer
around $600,000 in prize money.
At this point, any tournament that does not receive an "A" designation
will be dropped to a “B” level, where they will only have
to offer around $225,000 in prize money, but not be guaranteed any
Top-10 players.
However, negotiations on the topics between the tour, the Slams, the
ITF and the tournaments are still ongoing.
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