U.S. Open Series Events Bank on New Sponsors

By Erik Gudris Photo Credit: AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez

Milos Raonic - SAP Open 2012

(April 23rd, 2012) The summer hard court season is still several months away but that didn't stop several U.S. Open Series events from making some news this week as both the tournaments in Atlanta and Washington D.C announced new sponsors. Meanwhile, one of the oldest tournaments held in America will come to an end next year.

The long-standing ATP 500 event in Washington D.C., formerly known as the Legg Mason Tennis Classic, will now be combined with the smaller tier WTA event that was held in Maryland last year and turned into the Citi Open with Citibank as its title sponsor.

The Atlanta Tennis Championships also announced today a new naming rights deal with regional bank BB&T and will hence be known as the BB&T Atlanta Open. In Cincinnati, the combined ATP 1000 and WTA Premier Mandatory event there announced that Western & Southern Financial Group would remain as title sponsor through 2014.

Meanwhile, several ATP events scheduled in February will be shuffled and one will end entirely next year. According to multiple sources, the SAP Open in San Jose will be held one more time in 2013 and then the event will be moved to Rio de Janeiro in 2014 as an ATP 500 event. The ATP 500 event in Memphis, despite losing its main sponsor, will remain in the city next year but will be downgraded to an ATP 250 event.

The event in San Jose, won for the last two years by Milos Raonic, was one of the longest running tennis tournaments in the United States since it started in 1889 as the Pacific Coast Championships.