The Madrid Open ( es, Masters de Madrid, link=no), currently sponsored by
Mutua Madrileña
Mutua Madrileña, S.A. also known as La Mutua, is by its joint venture with Vida Caixa, the largest Spanish insurance company as both Vida Caixa and Mutua Madrileña occupy the first and third position (respectively) of the Spanish Insurance Comp ...
and known as the Mutua Madrid Open, is a joint men's and women's professional
tennis
Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...
tournament, held in
Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...
, during early May. The
clay-court event is classified as an
ATP Tour Masters 1000
The ATP Masters 1000 tournaments (previously known as ATP Masters Series) is an annual series of nine tennis tournaments featuring the top-ranked players on the ATP Tour. The series' events have been held in Europe and North America since th ...
on the
ATP Tour
The ATP Tour is a worldwide top-tier tennis tour for men organized by the Association of Tennis Professionals. The second-tier tour is the ATP Challenger Tour and the third-tier is the ITF Men's World Tennis Tour. The equivalent women's organ ...
and a
WTA 1000
WTA 1000 tournaments is a category of tennis tournaments on the WTA Tour, governed by the Women's Tennis Association. The old WTA Premier Mandatory and Premier 5 tournaments merged into a single highest tier and it is implemented since the r ...
event on the
WTA Tour
The WTA Tour is a worldwide top-tier tennis tour for women organized by the Women's Tennis Association. The second-tier tour is the WTA 125K series, and third-tier is the ITF Women's Circuit. The men's equivalent is the ATP Tour.
WTA Tour tou ...
. In the past, it has also been known as the Madrid Masters. The tournament is traditionally played on a red clay surface. The event was played on blue courts in the 2012 tournament edition, with the ATP deciding against blue thereafter.
Ion Țiriac
Ion Țiriac (; born 9 May 1939), also known as the "Brașov Bulldozer", is a Romanian businessman and former professional tennis and ice hockey player. He has been president of the Romanian Tennis Federation.
A former singles top 10 player on ...
, a Romanian billionaire businessman and former
ATP professional, was the owner of the tournament between 2009 and 2021. According to
Digi Sport which interviewed Țiriac in 2019, the tournament brings to the city of Madrid annual benefits exceeding €107 million.
In 2021, Țiriac sold the tournament to New York–based giants
IMG img or IMG is an abbreviation for image.
img or IMG may also refer to:
* IMG (company), global sports and media business headquartered in New York City but with its main offices in Cleveland, originally known as the "International Management Group ...
for approximately €390 Million.
History
From its inauguration as a men's only event in 2002, the tournament was classified as one of the
ATP Masters Series
The ATP Masters 1000 tournaments (previously known as ATP Masters Series) is an annual series of nine tennis tournaments featuring the top-ranked players on the ATP Tour. The series' events have been held in Europe and North America since the ...
tournaments, where it replaced the now-defunct
Eurocard Open
The Eurocard Open was an annual tennis tournament for male professional players. The event was held annually in Stuttgart, Germany, and was played on indoor carpet from 1988 to 1997. Before 1990, during years 1988–1989 the tournament was organiz ...
in
Stuttgart. It was held from 2002 to 2008 in the
Madrid Arena as the first of two Master's indoor hard court late-season events that preceded the ATP Tour Finals (also indoors). It was replaced on the Masters schedule by the
Shanghai Masters after the 2008 season. In 2009, the tournament was reborn under new ownership with a new location, new surface, and new time slot. It expanded to include a premier women's contest (replacing the
tournament in Berlin) and shifted to an earlier period of the tennis season to become the second Master's tournament of the spring European clay-court swing (replacing the
Hamburg Open). The event moved outdoors to Park Manzanares, where a new complex with a retractable-roof equipped main court was constructed, the
Caja Magica
Caja (meaning "box" in Spanish) can refer to:
* ''Caja'' or ''caixa'', a Spanish savings bank similar to a credit union
* Caja project, a former Google project for reducing security risks in HTML, CSS and JavaScript
* Caja del Rio, a mesa in New M ...
.
Țiriac announced in April 2019 that he has extended his sponsorship contract of the Mutua Madrid Open for 10 additional years, until 2031. Because he agreed to continue in Madrid, Țiriac will receive more than 30 million euros from the city of Madrid in the coming years.
Feliciano López
Feliciano López Díaz-Guerra (; born 20 September 1981) is a Spanish professional tennis player. He achieved his career-high singles ranking of world No. 12 in March 2015 and doubles ranking of world No. 9 in November 2016.In 2005, López was t ...
was announced as the Madrid tournament director, commencing 2019.
Starting in 2021, the women's tournament, part of the WTA tour, expanded to become a two-week tournament.
By December of the same year, it was announced Tiriac sold the event to IMG, which is now the new organizator and has already planned an expansion of courts, including a new stadium for over 10,000 people, to be built by partly draining the lake circling Caja Magica.
In June 2022 ATP announced some changes to the ATP calendar for the coming year. The ATP Masters 1000 event in Madrid along with those in Shanghai and in Rome would now be held over two weeks starting in 2023, thus becoming 12 day events just like the Masters 1000 events in Indian Wells and Miami.
Blue clay
![FedererBlueClay](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/FedererBlueClay.jpg)
Tiriac proposed and implemented in 2012 a new color of blue clay for all the courts' surfaces, motivating that it would supposedly be better visually, especially for viewers on television (analogous to some hardcourt surface events migrating to blue from various previous color schemes). Some speculated that the adaptation of blue colour was a nod to the titular sponsor of the tournament, the Spanish insurance giant Mutua Madrileña. This controversial change was subsequently granted and began to be used in the 2012 edition of the tournament. In 2009 one of the outer tennis courts had already been made of the new surface for the players to test it.
Manuel Santana
Manuel Santana Martínez (10 May 1938 – 11 December 2021), also known as Manolo Santana, was a Spanish tennis player. He was ranked as amateur world No. 1 in 1965 by Ned Potter and in 1966 by Lance Tingay[Rafael Nadal
Rafael Nadal Parera (, ; born 3 June 1986) is a Spanish professional tennis player. He is currently ranked world No. 2 in singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). He has been ranked world No. 1 for 209 weeks, and has finish ...]
and
Novak Djokovic
Novak Djokovic ( sr-Cyrl, Новак Ђоковић, translit=Novak Đoković, ; born 22 May 1987) is a Serbian professional tennis player. He has been ranked world No. 1 for a record total 373 weeks, and has finished as the year-end No. 1 ...
(who both lost on the blue surface), led the tournament to return to the traditional red clay for the 2013 season.
Roger Federer
Roger Federer (; born 8 August 1981) is a Swiss former professional tennis player. He was ranked world No. 1 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for 310 weeks, including a record 237 consecutive weeks, and finished as the year-e ...
is the only male player to win the tournament on three different surfaces: hard courts (
2006), red clay (
2009), and blue clay (
2012
File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gat ...
).
Serena Williams
Serena Jameka Williams (born September 26, 1981) is an American inactive professional tennis player. Considered among the greatest tennis players of all time, she was ranked world No. 1 in singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for ...
is the only female player to win the tournament on two different surfaces: blue clay (
2012
File:2012 Events Collage V3.png, From left, clockwise: The passenger cruise ship Costa Concordia lies capsized after the Costa Concordia disaster; Damage to Casino Pier in Seaside Heights, New Jersey as a result of Hurricane Sandy; People gat ...
) and red clay (
2013
File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment fa ...
).
Past finals
Men
Singles
Doubles
Women
Singles
Doubles
Records
See also
*
Madrid Tennis Grand Prix
The Madrid Tennis Grand Prix is a defunct professional men's tennis tournament that was played on outdoor clay courts in Madrid, Spain with the exception of the 1984 edition which was played on indoor carpet courts. It was part of the Grand Prix ...
*
WTA Madrid Open
Notes
References
External links
Official Madrid Open websiteATP tournament profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Madrid Open (Tennis)
Indoor tennis tournaments
Tennis tournaments in Spain
Hard court tennis tournaments
WTA Tour
Open
Open or OPEN may refer to:
Music
* Open (band), Australian pop/rock band
* The Open (band), English indie rock band
* ''Open'' (Blues Image album), 1969
* ''Open'' (Gotthard album), 1999
* ''Open'' (Cowboy Junkies album), 2001
* ''Open'' ( ...
Recurring sporting events established in 1990
1990 establishments in Spain
ATP Tour Masters 1000