The German Open women’s tennis tournament in Berlin will not take place this year, the WTA has announced.
Reuters reports that the cancellation is due to the Qatar Tennis Federation (QTF), which owned the right to organize the tournament, selling its right back to the Tour. The QTF deal was meant to run until 2009, but new management decided to end it early. Reuters quotes a WTA spokesman as saying, "the tournament being scrapped has nothing to do with the global credit crunch."
The event was bought by the QTF to raise the profile of Qatar in Europe, and was used as a platform to promote sports tourism in the Gulf state. It was the most high-profile tennis event in Germany, following the downgrading of the Hamburg men’s tournament from top-tier status last year.
The German Open usually took place in May, and was seen as a warm-up for the French Open. It had been classified as one of the WTA Tour’s ‘premier’ events this year, with a $600,000 prize purse.
Reuters quotes a WTA spokeswoman as saying, "Negotiations are ongoing to see if another tournament will fill in the gap left on the WTA calendar for the week beginning 18 May".
