RÍO DE JANEIRO – Under the tropical heat, with Christ the Redeemer embracing everyone from the top of Corcovado, Rio de Janeiro is further proof of the passion that tennis awakens in Latin America. Does the ATP know or understand this?
It seems not, suggests Luiz Carvalho, director of South America’s biggest tournament, who has been inviting Andrea Gaudenzi, president of the ATP, to visit Rio for years. And failing in the attempt. The same thing happens at the ATP 250 in Buenos Aires, another tournament overflowing with spectators and passion.
‘Andrea is a super visionary guy, and I’m sure if he saw this here, he’d probably have a different opinion about the Latin American market,’ said Carvalho, director of the Rio Open, during an interview with CLAY.
Carvalho, a 43-year-old Brazilian, worked for the ATP more than 20 years ago, has been director of the Queen’s tournament and runs the Chengdu and Hong Kong tournaments, as well as the one in Rio. A good tennis player, he reached number 868 in the world rankings in 2000, but life did not lead him down the path of professionalism, although tennis is in his blood. His dream is for the Rio Open to grow and also to be chosen as the best ATP 500 in the world.
– Was this last edition in February the most special of the eleven years of the Rio Open?
– Absolutely. We are seeing first-hand the birth of an idol like Joao Fonseca, possibly a world idol. And it’s a heavy thing to say, because it puts a lot of pressure on him. But we also say it because it’s very natural, Joao has a very natural charisma, he’s very pure.
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– And beyond Fonseca, how mature is the Rio Open?
– The tournament is maturing, more and more, we have much more control over the product as a whole. We already have a very advanced plan of where we want to go from now on, we are always thinking 12, 24 months ahead. We also know that we need more space to be able to grow as an event, as a product, to be able to give this experience to more people. We are almost at maximum capacity.
– Is there no more space here, at the Jockey Club Brasileiro?
– We are studying some formats, some possibilities, some formats. We are not ruling out any of the options. We have this demand and we don’t want to miss this opportunity.
– Would you change venue?
– It’s just that we really like the Jockey as a venue. They welcome us very warmly. I even spoke to João Sousa, the former Portuguese player who now works in player relations at the ATP, and asked him what the players are saying.
– And what do the players say?
– He told me, ‘man, the players love this place, it’s a unique natural beauty, you play at the foot of the statue of Christ the Redeemer, the hotel is super close, things work, so we don’t want to leave here’. This is a super suitable place for the event. Just as we helped develop the product, the Jockey also helped a lot in this construction, in this partnership we have. They understand our needs and fulfil all our requests.
– You recently said on social media that you want the Rio Open to win the award for the best ATP 500 of the year.
– We’ve never won it. That’s the biggest frustration of my career.
– You won it as tournament director of Queen’s…
– I won with Queen’s, I won with Queen’s. But Queen’s had already won it before. For 2025, the ATP has changed the system. It was always a vote by the players at the end of the year when they received an email and voted. Since 2025, we’ve seen a player rating process, so it’s almost like a report card, players rate 20, 25 aspects of the event, transport, hotel, players’ room, everything, from 1 to 5, and that score gives an average, and then the tournament with the best average wins the Tournament of the Week Award. So I think we do have a chance now because… we’ve already received this report, haven’t we? So we already know what our score is. We focus a lot on the points we didn’t do well last year to try to improve our score and we focus even more on the ones we did well to maintain it. It’s very motivating for the team. It’s an award we would love to receive in recognition of the team’s work.
– Catalina Fillol, the director of the Santiago tournament, said in an interview with CLAY that Santiago and Rio have agreed to change their surfaces to cement to attract higher-ranked players, but that Buenos Aires does not want to.
– I read what Cata said and spoke to her afterwards. I talk to Cata a lot, I love her, we have a great relationship. And I also talk to Martin Jaite [director of Buenos Aires] a lot. It’s not a new issue, we’ve been talking about it for a few years, because it’s increasingly obvious that it’s very difficult to get players to play on clay between the Australian Open and Indian Wells, and with the improvements in Dallas and Doha, it’s become even more difficult. So if you look at the Doha player field, in the same week as Rio, they have 8 top 20 or top 15 players, if I’m not mistaken. And Rio has one. There is a lot of potential for more. What could happen in Rio if three top 10 players, four top 10 players played? I imagine there could be two courts, one for 10,000 and one for 5,000 spectators, and there would be an audience for that. There is a stubbornness on the part of the players not to lose tournaments on clay, which prevents a tournament from developing and becoming a better product for them.
– How so?
The tournament could become a business for them, so that they earn more money, so that their prizes increase, so that their comfort increases. So we are a bit limited in this sense. We want to invest and the Tour doesn’t allow us to move on to the next stage. Because that’s the point, if we had more top players, surely the product would have even greater value, it would have even greater added value. So we feel a little embarrassed and a little unfairly treated by all this. Obviously the Tour needs to regulate and needs to have criteria, but I don’t share the argument that you can’t lose a clay court tournament and that refusing to change to hard court will prevent the tournament from growing and becoming more visible.
– A CLAY reader wrote to us weeks ago proposing to reorder the season: to play Indian Wells and Miami in February, as a continuation of the Australian Open, and the South American tour in March, on clay, as a preview of the European one.
– That would be good.
– Have you discussed anything like this with the ATP?
– No, we’ve never been able to talk. The truth is that the calendar is increasingly rigid, with the expansion of the Masters 1000, you barely have three weeks of 250. You could put Buenos Aires in the same week as Santiago, who knows, but you wouldn’t have three weeks anymore. Because you have two Masters 1000, two weeks, and then you have Monte Carlo, so…
– South America doesn’t seem to be interesting for television.
– This isn’t just about today, is it, Sebastián? In the past, we had better political influence within the ATP for this Latin American market. Today, there is very little Latin American representation in politics, the entire ATP board and council are very European and North American. And I don’t blame them for not seeing South America, I think we need to have more of a voice and speak up more to try to be heard, I think it’s a shame. It’s a market with enormous potential, it’s a market with an enormous sporting tradition, with several champions, number ones, the tournaments are good, the tournaments have an audience. Sometimes I feel a bit sorry that there’s no one there [in the ATP] looking after us. That’s the truth.
– In South America there is an enthusiasm for tennis that is not seen in Europe, where many tournaments are played with practically empty stands.
– And in many other parts of the world it is very similar. Imagine what this market could be if it really had a strategic plan. And I’m not talking about overnight. I don’t think it has to change tomorrow. But I would very much like the ATP to present a plan for the region. Let’s think about a player development plan, let’s develop tournaments. I think things are still very short-term. Decisions are very immediate. And that’s holding us back from developing.
– Andrea Gaudenzi, does he know the Rio Open?
– No. Not the Rio Open. He never came. He was invited, but obviously due to his schedule he never came. It’s strange. Anyway, I’d love him to come. Because Andrea is a super visionary guy, and I’m sure if he saw this here, he would probably have a different opinion about the Latin American market. Not that I know what his opinion is, I’m not saying he has the wrong opinion, he’s biased, but I think he would probably pay a little more attention, as would Massimo (Calvelli), who is the CEO of the ATP.
– And why don’t they come to South America?
We invite them year after year, we understand that there are agendas and it’s not always easy, but that’s what I said, so this year Pablo Andújar came, who is on the ATP board, who has played. Eric Starelli came, some of the ATP executives came, because I want them to see this, I want them to see that what we have here is a diamond in the rough and that we are missing an opportunity because of political disputes, things that lead us nowhere.
