WTA 250 to be relocated from Chennai to Manila next year

Chennai played host to a WTA 250 tournament for the first time in 2022 on a single-year license. The event was held last year in the city for the second time after being relocated from Mexico. A third and final edition for the foreseeable future will take place in November this year before it is shifted to the Filipino capital. | Photo Credit: B. Jothi Ramalingam

The ‘Alexandra Eala effect’ may have finally struck India but not in the way the country’s tennis fans would have hoped for.

WTA 250 Chennai Open, the country’s only top-tier tennis tournament, will be held from November 2 to 8 at the SDAT Stadium in Nungambakkam. However, next year, in the same slot, it will be replaced with a first-ever tour-level event in the Philippines as the various stakeholders look to capitalise on the rapidly growing fanbase of the 21-year-old Eala, currently ranked 18th in the world.

Along with the return of a WTA 125 event, held for the first time in the Philippines in January this season, a WTA 250 tournament will make its debut in Manila in late 2027 and is scheduled for November 1-7.

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“Philippine tennis just got its biggest stage yet. The country will host two women’s pro tournaments: the WTA 125 makes its return in January 2027, and the newly upgraded WTA 250 lands in November 2027, giving Filipino fans main-tour-level action on home soil for the first time,” the Philippine Tennis Association announced on Thursday.

Chennai played host to a WTA 250 tournament for the first time in 2022 on a single-year license. The event was held last year in the city for the second time after being relocated from Mexico. A third and final edition for the foreseeable future will take place in November this year before it is shifted to the Filipino capital.

Octagon, the sports agency that holds the license for the event, has confirmed the move to Sportstar.

“Yes, it’s correct that next year, in the week that Chennai was operating, there is going to be a WTA 250 in Manila,” Alastair Garland, managing director of the tennis division of Octagon, told this publication.

The rise of Eala provides WTA and Octagon a chance to enter into a new and growing market. “That (Eala’s rise) is a factor and that makes the Philippines and Manila an appealing solution. To have a WTA footprint in the Philippines, that’s definitely an important contributing factor,” said Garland.

Garland also mentioned that the present time slot is not ideal for Chennai. “The challenge is that the week that Chennai is currently operating in is not ideal in terms of the weather because it’s during the rainy season there,” he said.

It should be noted that the first two days of main draw action of last year’s tournament, held from October 27 to November 2, were completely washed out. What also needs to be looked at is that India has failed to produce a top-quality singles player in women’s tennis since Sania Mirza in the 2000s with barely any presence at the Grand Slam level.

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In both editions of the WTA Chennai Open, all Indian players needed wildcards to enter the main draw as they could not make the entry cutoff based on the rankings and none of them managed to go past the second round. To add to it, the attendance numbers were generally low before the semifinals and the finals.

But Garland added that the WTA, Octagon and Vijay Amritraj, Indian tennis legend and President of the Tamil Nadu Tennis Association, are in conversation to maintain a certain tennis footprint in the country.

“We are all actively looking at solutions to make sure that tennis continues in India. It’s just not going to be in that week and in that form. And hopefully, it will be in a stronger way,” he said.

He suggested that it could be in the form of a WTA 125, a second-tier tournament, or a WTA 250 in Chennai at a different time of the year. “There are various different solutions being actively looked at at the moment,” he said.

Sportstar has reached out to Amritraj for a comment on the same.

The development is another blow to Indian tennis after the country’s dismal campaign at the ongoing Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, ended without a single medal following Sumit Nagal’s loss to China’s Wu Yibing in the men’s singles quarterfinals on Thursday. For the first time in four decades, the Indian tennis contingent has failed to achieve any podium finish across categories at the continental showpiece.