The Eastbourne Open (also known as Eastbourne International, formerly Rothesay) is a
tennis
Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...
tournament
A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses:
# One or more competitions held at a single venue and concen ...
on the
WTA Tour and the
ATP Tour
The ATP Tour (known as ATP World Tour between January 2009 and December 2018) is the sole worldwide top-tier tennis tour for men organized by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) founded in 1990 that replaced the earlier dual Grand Prix ...
held at the
Devonshire Park Lawn Tennis Club,
Eastbourne
Eastbourne () is a town and seaside resort in East Sussex, on the south coast of England, east of Brighton and south of London. It is also a non-metropolitan district, local government district with Borough status in the United Kingdom, bor ...
, United Kingdom. Held since 1974, it is classified as an
ATP Tour 250 series on the ATP Tour and a
WTA 250 series on the WTA Tour (downgraded from
WTA 500 in 2025). The tournament is played on outdoor
grass courts, and is generally considered a "warm-up" for the
Wimbledon Championships, a
major
Major most commonly refers to:
* Major (rank), a military rank
* Academic major, an academic discipline to which an undergraduate student formally commits
* People named Major, including given names, surnames, nicknames
* Major and minor in musi ...
tournament, which begins the following week. It was originally just part of the WTA Tour, but from 2009 it was combined as an ATP Tour event. It replaced the
Nottingham Open grass court tournament from 2009–2014. Nottingham returned for 2015–2016 with no men's event in Eastbourne, however Eastbourne replaced the Nottingham event again from 2017 onwards. From 2022 until 2024, it was sponsored by
Rothesay, with past sponsors including
Viking Cruises,
Nature Valley and
AEGON.
Combination
During 2007, lack of sponsorship for the Eastbourne tournament led the
Lawn Tennis Association
The Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) is the national governing body of tennis in Great Britain, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man founded in 1888. The LTA promotes all levels of lawn tennis. The organization believes tennis can provide ...
to consider moving the tournament to London. However, as part of a general reorganisation of United Kingdom professional tennis tournaments, it was instead decided to merge the event with the
Nottingham Open, traditionally held during the same week. From 2009, therefore, the Eastbourne courts have hosted a combined women's and men's event until 2014. In 2015 and 2016 it was an only a Ladies event (with the men's competition returning to Nottingham). In 2017, the Eastbourne tournament returned to being a combined event.
Past winners
Martina Navratilova
Martina Navratilova (, ; ; born October18, 1956) is a Czech-American former professional tennis player. She was ranked as the world No. 1 in women's List of WTA number 1 ranked singles tennis players, singles for 332 weeks (List of WTA number ...
holds the record for the most singles titles with 11.
Finals
Women's singles
Women's champions by country
Men's singles
Men's champions by country
Doubles finals
Women
Women's champions by country
Men
Men's champions by country
See also
*
Sport in Sussex
References
External links
*
LTA tournament website
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Sport in Eastbourne
Grass court tennis tournaments
WTA 500 tournaments
Recurring sporting events established in 1974
Tennis tournaments in England
ATP Tour 250