BUENOS AIRES – The ATP wants to maintain and boost the South American tennis tour. At least, that is what Martín Jaite, director of the Argentine Open, claims Andrea Gaudenzi, head of the ATP, told him during his visit to Buenos Aires. And to make that possible and ensure it works, the Argentines have a plan: to be like Rio de Janeiro.
‘What he told us is that the ATP wants to maintain and promote the South American tour. He told us that he wants the tour to continue and that the dates should not be changed,’ said Jaite during an interview with CLAY at the end of the Argentine tournament.
How? ‘Perhaps by keeping the same tournaments, perhaps by expanding one of the tournaments,’ he added. ‘Expanding one of the tournaments’ refers to Buenos Aires’ intentions to jump from the ATP 250 category to the ATP 500 category, the same as the Rio Open.
Francisco Cerúndolo, this Sunday’s Argentine Open champion, addressed Gaudenzi, who was present at the stadium, during the award ceremony and said: ‘For a 250, this is a luxury.’
The South American tour, which spans three weeks in Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro and Santiago de Chile, is in trouble from 2028 onwards with the appearance of a Masters 1000 in Saudi Arabia, almost certainly in February, precisely during the weeks when the tennis circuit passes through South America.
‘To boost the South American tour, in the medium term the ideal would be to have two 500 tournaments in South America,’ said Jaite. If this were to happen, the slogan of the Rio Open (‘the biggest tournament in South America’) would probably have to be changed.
Will it happen? The intentions of the Argentines—who two years ago tried to jump to the 500 category and failed against Dallas, Doha and Munich—are one thing, but what the ATP does is another. The positive news for Buenos Aires and South American tennis in general is that Gaudenzi got to know the Argentine tournament and will get to know the Brazilian one starting this Monday.
A year ago, Luiz Carvalho, director of the Rio Open, told CLAY that if Gaudenzi got to know the South American tournaments, his view of the region would surely ‘change’. That is what is happening these days.
Jaite told CLAY that it was ‘easy to get along’ with Gaudenzi, as they are both former tennis players.
“Nothing we talk about and I propose to him is foreign to him. The ATP does not want to kill the South American tour, but the problem the ATP has today goes beyond the South American tour. In 2028, a tournament in Saudi Arabia will appear that will shake up the entire South American tour, the European indoor tour, and even the US tour with Delray Beach and Dallas…‘
Will Saudi Arabia then be played in February? ’All signs point to February, but it’s not confirmed. I understand that the 2028 calendar will be released in the middle of the year. Several pieces have to be put in place, and the ATP is already doing so. It has bought back some 250 tournaments, leaving fewer 250 tournaments, and a couple of years ago it added a couple more 500 tournaments.”
Gaudenzi, who had last been in Buenos Aires in 2002, when he lost in the second round of the tournament to Argentine José Acasuso.
‘Gaudenzi was very positively surprised by the city, which is very important, but he was also impressed by the tournament, the tennis culture here, and how much people here know about tennis. Gaudenzi is a very knowledgeable person, and I can say that he left satisfied with his visit.’
Kristoff Puelinckx, one of the owners of Tennium, the agency that organises the tournaments in Buenos Aires, Barcelona and Hamburg, among others, had long conversations with Gaudenzi, while Jaite gave him an extensive tour of the facilities of the Buenos Aires Lawn Tennis Club, located in the Bosques de Palermo.
‘He really liked the part of the tournament that takes place in the woods, all the new things we have implemented in the players’ area, which also has to do with the increasingly demanding standards of the ATP. Today, players travel with a lot of people around them, so the entire players’ area has to be larger. Our standard is very good.’
Gaudenzi will not visit the tournament in Santiago, which has raised suspicions in Chile.
“Well, Gaudenzi is a very busy person, and he came here yesterday and today, and on Monday and Tuesday he will be in Rio. Santiago has always been a more complicated tournament than ours and Rio’s, because it competes against the 500s. Now we are also competing against the 500s with Rotterdam and Dallas. I don’t know why he’s not going to Santiago. I don’t have that answer.‘
Although Buenos Aires insists on keeping clay as its playing surface, it admits that if Rio decided to make the switch to hard courts, it would be forced to follow suit.
’We have to follow Rio’s decisions to some extent, because Rio is the 500 tournament, the biggest tournament. The decision is not up to the tournament, it also has to do with the ATP, which does not want to lose these weeks of clay either, because South American and Latin American players defend it.‘
’If we switch to hard courts, we will compete more strongly against the hard court tournaments,” admits Jaite, who returns to the fact of Rio’s primacy.
‘If Rio were to switch to hard courts, we would automatically have to switch to hard courts as well. But it’s not a decision for Rio, nor is it a decision for Buenos Aires. It’s a much broader negotiation, something that goes beyond the wishes of each tournament.’
If Buenos Aires were to become an ATP 500 like Rio, would it have to change venues?
Rio, a larger and more extensive tournament than the Argentine one, will soon expand its facilities. ‘No,’ says Jaite. “I understand that one of the things Andrea (Gaudenzi) and [former Spanish tennis player] Pablo Andújar, who is on the ATP board, came to see was whether the facilities in Buenos Aires could support the tournament’s growth to the 500 category.
From what we saw, we would have to do some work, we would have to make some changes, but it could be done here at the Buenos Aires Lawn Tennis Club. If we say that the ATP is interested in promoting the South American tour, then we have to increase the level of points for the tournaments.”
