Adelaide International locked in for Memorial Drive as part of ATP tour changes

Adelaide has rejoined the official professional tennis schedule for the first time since 2008 and will stage an important Australian Open lead-up event after the ATP Tour made a few tweaks to the 2020 calendar.

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Some of the world’s best tennis players will finetune their skills in Adelaide after Memorial Drive was locked in as one of two Australian Open lead-up events as part of a reconfigured schedule for the 2020 ATP season.

The Adelaide tournament will be played at the same time as an event in Auckland, New Zealand, and will have a Saturday final to give players more than a week to recover ahead of the Australian Open.

The Adelaide event — which may yet announce a naming rights sponsor — will be played alongside a premier Women’s Tennis Association event which will offer more prizemoney and is expected to draw the best female players in the world.

Artist impressions of the $10 million upgrade to the Memorial drive sports facility is expected to be the key to South Australia attracting more world class events to the state. Picture Supplied

Both of the events have effectively been moved from Sydney — which will be central in the ATP Cup — and Memorial Drive will be covered by a permanent lightweight roof after the State government tipped in $10 million to help secure the event.

Sydney’s tournament last year included top female players such as then-world No. 1 Simona Halep, then-No. 2 Angelique Kerber and another six of the world’s top-12 players, including eventual winner and then-No. 7-ranked Petra Kvitova.

Australia’s leading female player, Ash Barty, made the final.

Adelaide is expected to attract a similar field.

The strength of the Memorial Drive men’s tournament will be affected by the inaugural ATP Cup, which will be played from January 3 in Brisbane, Sydney and a third city yet to be announced but likely to be Perth.

Players knocked out of that event early are more likely to enter Adelaide than those who last deep into the event.

The new fixture spells the end of the World Tennis Challenge, an exhibition event that was founded by a group of former players including Mark Woodforde, Darren Cahill, Roger Rasheed and Alistair MacDonald.

Woodforde reflected on the imminent changes when talking to The Advertiser and said while he would be sad to see “their baby” disappear from the Australian summer, the only reason it was created was to keep some representation of top level tennis in Australia for the future of the sport.

Australia’s leading player Ash Barty and Czech Petra Kvitova are among the world’s leading players expected to come to Adelaide. Picture: Craig Golding/AAP

The ATP Cup may also lead to the end of Perth’s exhibition event, the Hopman Cup.

The ATP Cup will feature 24 teams, will be played over 10 days and offer US$15 million in prize money to launch the tennis season.

It will also be played for ranking points.

The other event played in the first week of the year will be the Qatar Open in Doha.

Other changes to the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) calendar in 2020 include:

THE governing body issuing an open application for an ATP 250 grass court event in Europe the be played the week before Wimbledon, now being played in Antalya, Turkey

INDIA’S tournament in Pune to be moved from week 1 to week 5 in the calendar, and

ALL events featuring a shot clock, with players needing to start their serving action within 25 seconds of the chair umpire calling out the score.