The billboard of Open BNP Seguros de Monterrey adorns himself with three top 20 tennis players, one of them, Emma Raducanu (number 13), the 19-year-old American Open champion, in addition to the former monarchs of the competition, the Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (14) and the Ukrainian Elina Svitolina (fifteen). Similarly, the current champion will return, Leyla Fernandezwho was also a finalist in the last edition of the US Open.
The WTA 250 Monterey Ope It has gained a special place among tennis players, every year it competes in the calendar with one or two tournaments in the same period, but among these it is the one that receives more players with the best rankings or Grand Slam winners. This year, 21 of his players are in the top-100 and three of them are in the top-20; last year it was led by the 2017 US Open champion, Sloane Stephens; in 2020, two top-15 participated and between 2017 and 2019, it had two of the top 18.
Other Grand Slam players who took part in the WTA 250 in Monterrey are Victoria Azarenka, Angelique Kerber, Garbiñe Muguruza Y Caroline Wozniacki.
This despite its complicated schedule. In 2021, it is with the Lyon OpeFrance, a tournament that started playing in 2020 and whose short history has allowed it to take tennis players above the top 30, is the only top 10 it has had Sofia youn in its first edition. This year, the French event did not announce its playing field. In both tournaments, a purse of $ 239,477 is handed out.
In 2020, the Mexican competition coincided with the St Petersburg Women’s Trophy, from Russia, whose pips were between 33 and 58, and with the Oracle Challenger series in Indian Wells. Previously, the Monterrey Open’s task of attracting higher-ranking players was hampered by overlapping with the WTA 500 tournament in Charleston, which kicked off the clay court season.
“The WTA registration system is done through the tournament calendar and each player chooses where to play. Sometimes we make special invitations to one or two Top 20 players, ”Hernán Garza, director of the competition, shared with this newspaper in 2021, adding that given the level of the event (WTA 250) most of the tennis players within the Top. 100 and the cancellation of any of them does not affect the tournament.
In addition to the 21 players already announced, there will be a qualifying tournament to take part in the draw and two game cards will be awarded.
The bag shown in this issue of the Monterey Open This represents an increase of $ 4,239 over last year, although it did not reach the levels it spread before the pandemic, when it reached $ 265,000.
From February 26 to March 6, the Monterrey Open will celebrate its fourteenth consecutive edition, even in a difficult year such as 2021, the tournament managed to appear and in black numbers despite the reduction of up to 50% in the contribution of some of its sponsors, as this newspaper has learned.
Garza is confident that the Sonoma Club, the venue for the event, could be between 70 and 100% of its capacity this year, which he describes as positive given that it will be played in the stalls without an audience in 2021 is due to the limitations of the covid-19 pandemic, which represented 50% of revenue. The operation of the event could have resulted in black numbers because the operating costs were also reduced by up to 40% and the economic price by 12%.
The cost of tickets for this tournament will increase from 300 to 3,500 pesos on the first day of activity and will increase as it gets closer to the final. For the last day of competition, the lowest prices will be at 700 pesos and the most expensive at 4,800. There is also the possibility to buy by subscription, it goes from 3 140 to 27 080 for the events of the whole week.
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Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx