Diego Schwartzman criticizes ATP for ignoring Argentina and its history while Doha, Munich, and Dallas get promoted from 250 to 500-level events

Former World No.8, Argentina's Diego Schwartzman, called ATP out for not upgrading any tournaments in his country, despite rich tennis history.

Diego Schwartzman criticizes ATP for ignoring Argentina and its history while Doha, Munich, and Dallas get promoted from 250 to 500-level events

ATP 500 and Diego Schwartzman (Image via: Open source)

The Association for Tennis Professionals (ATP) recently announced that it will be upgrading Tour events in Dallas, Doha, and Munich to ATP 500 status in 2025. This move came about after the ATP decided to magnify the status of the tour and strengthen the calendar. Argentine tennis player Diego Schwartzman, however, took to social media to express his disappointment with the organization.

While the Dallas Open will be relocated to a new venue, the Qatar ExxonMobil Open in Doha, which has been voted as the best ATP 250 event by players, will also get an upgrade. 

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The BMW Open in Munich will get a boost in its status as well, and the facility in the German city will undergo a full-scale renovation. The association’s decision to keep Argentina out of the equation upset four-time ATP Singles title-winner Diego Schwartzman.

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In a post on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), she called out the ATP for ignoring the promotion of tennis in Argentina, a country with a rich history of tennis.

Bad decision by ATP... to continue promoting countries and tours that already have all kinds of tournaments and facilities. And not so to choose a tour and region of the world that has so much history in tennis and that only has 4 tournaments a year.
Schwartzman’s post read.

Argentina has hosted several big tennis events in the past. Several top seeds on the ATP rankings list have been Argentinians as well. These include eight-time Grand Slam doubles winners Paola Suarez, Gaston Gaudio, and David Nalbandian, as well as US Open winners Guillermo Vilas and Juan Martin de Potro, among others. 

Acknowledging the great history of tennis in Argentina and the country’s contribution to the sport, Schwartzman additionally acknowledged Buenos Aires’ contribution to tennis in his post.

ATP’s plans for reforming the events on the Tour

Leveling up the event calendars for tennis enthusiasts and players alike is one of the core objectives of the OneVision strategy. ATP 250 tournaments in Atlanta, Lyon, and Newport will, however, cease to exist in 2025 as part of the new reforms.

ATP Tour
ATP Tour(Image via: Sportstar-The Hindu)

With the upgrade, the ATP 500 category will expand from 13 to 16 events in one season. Each of the three new tournaments in the 500-level will offer approximately $2.8 million in prize money. In the ATP Masters 1000 category, seven of the nine tournaments will be held over 12 days in 2025. The ATP will be announcing the full 2025 tour calendar in the upcoming months.

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