By James Steel
Le Progres published an investigative article cited in a L’equipe article, firming up evidence of major changes to the ATP calendar from 2025. These changes will see a sliming down of certain weeks of the tour and shortening of some parts of the season to make way for the second round of 12 day Masters 1000 events.
So what are the major changes?
The first change according to the article is the removal of five ATP 250 events from the tour calendar. The two grass court events in Newport and Majorca will go along with the two clay events in Lyon and Estoril and the hard court event in Atlanta. The next major change will be upgrading three events on the tour calendar. This will see ATP 250 tournaments upgraded to ATP 500 events. These tournaments include Dallas, Doha and Munich. The aim, it seems, is to hold more twin ATP 500 events at the same time. Similar to Acapulco/Dubai, Queens/Halle and Vienna/Basel. It is also reported that Hamburg will be moved from July to the week just before Roland Garros. There’s no word on a change in status but we can assume that this will be the only ATP 500 event to be held the week prior to a grand slam.
So how does this change the tour schedule?
We won’t have the official list of 2025 tournaments until early next year but we know that there will be three periods of the calendar that will see a major overhaul. These being the bitty February tournaments, the Mediterranean clay court season and the post Wimbledon clay. For each time period, I’ve created a calendar for all three time periods and what we can expect to see.
February bitty tournaments
| Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 |
| Davis Cup Qualifying | ATP 250 Cordoba | ATP 250 Buenos Aires | ATP 500 Rio | ATP 250 Santiago |
| ATP 250 Marseille | ATP 500 Rotterdam | ATP 500 Doha | ATP 500 Dubai | |
| ATP 250 Montpellier | ATP 500 Dallas | ATP 250 Delray Beach | ATP 500 Acapulco |
With regards to this time of year, there are no major changes to the number of events that will be put on. The major change will be the status of each of the tournaments. The changes will be seen in the first week of the swing where Montpellier and Marseille will possibly take place in the same week. Usually both tournaments play a week or two apart but under the new system they could only work in the same week. In the long term one of these two tournaments could be looking to move its positioning in the calendar, potentially moving to the Autumn period which is the main time for indoor hardcourt tennis.
Mediterranean Clay Court swing
| Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4/5 | Week 6/7 | Week 8 |
| ATP 250 Houston | ATP Masters 1000 Monte-Carlo | ATP 500 Barcelona | ATP Masters 1000 Madrid | ATP Masters 1000 Rome | ATP 500 Hamburg |
| ATP 250 Marrakesh | ATP 500 Munich | ATP 250 Geneva | |||
| ATP 250 (Europe) |
Similar to the February period, the number of tournaments doesn’t really change aside from there being one less tournament in week one of the swing. The major change will be Munich getting the upgrade. Now this will mean that Munich will need to upgrade their facilities as the centre court in Munich works for an ATP 250 tournament. However, it will be seen as too small for an ATP 500 event. Hamburg will make its return to this part of the calendar as well as an ATP 500. The major question will be to what extent will it attract big names given the big points on offer?
Post Wimbledon clay into US Open swing
| Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4/5 | Week 6/7 | Week 8 |
| ATP 250 Bastad | ATP 250 Kitzbuhel | ATP 500 Washington | ATP Masters 1000 Canada | ATP Masters 1000 Cincinnati | ATP 250 Winston Salam |
| ATP 250 Gstaad | ATP 250 Umag | ATP 250 Los Cabos |
This part of the season sees the biggest changes, something that would be expected given Canada and Cincinnati move from one week to 12 days for the event timescales. The first major change would be the shortening of the post-Wimbledon clay. This is something that we’ve seen already with the third week’s tournament (Kitzbuhel) taking place the same week as Washington and Los Cabos. The shortening takes the number of weeks of clay from three to two weeks. This is also coupled with the only ATP 500 for the period (Hamburg) being moved out of this time window. Because of that, we can expect it to be harder to attract top 10/20 players to the clay 250’s due to the lack of points and length of the swing. It will most likely be the clay court specialists who will venture these events in central Europe.
The other main change will be the extended length of time between Wimbledon finishing and the US events starting. Newport and Atlanta originally bridged this gap but both will be removed, meaning all US events will start later in the summer. It also means there’s less time for players to play on the hard courts before the US Open with the reduction of a week with Atlanta’s disappearance. Big questions will also be made about Newport and the Hall of Fame element of the venue. Newport has been on the calendar for decades and was the home of the US Open for a few years. Losing it from the calendar both shortens the grass court season and removes a bit of tennis history from the calendar.
With regards to Majorca’s removal, this does raise questions about how the grass season will run post 2025. The most obvious avenue would be for the Eastbourne ATP 250 to expand like Winston Salem from a 28 player draw to a 48 player draw. This would accommodate for the places lost at the Majorca tournament so that players can get as many grass matches in before Wimbledon. There is the other possibility that Stuttgart or Hertogenbosch move to the week before Wimbledon and Nottingham gets an upgrade from a Challenger 125 to an ATP 250 event. Surbiton could move into the challenger position in that week or they could bring back the Manchester challenger.
Final thoughts?
Overall in my mind the changes won’t have an adverse effect on the calendar. I feel for the loss of Estoril, Lyon, Newport and especially Estoril given it’s the only main tour event in the calendar for the Portuguese and it’s a country that has a desire for more tennis events. I have my concerns about Dallas and Munich. Those events currently don’t have the facilities to cater for an ATP 500 audience. It will be interesting to see how those sites develop to meet those needs. Doha has the venue for an ATP 500 and given the financial power of the event (offering the biggest prize money of any ATP 250 on the calendar in 2023), it makes sense for it to achieve the upgrade.
Sources
Tennis. Open Parc de Lyon: last edition in 2024? (leprogres.fr)
Tennis. The ATP 250 in Lyon is set to start in Munich (leprogres.fr)
Popcorn Tennis 
Food for thought. Thanks.
LikeLike