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The Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) is giving monetary help to India for conducting more Challengers events in the country. Vijay Amritraj, the president of the Tamil Nadu Tennis Association (TNTA), confirmed the development on Sunday, February 11.
India is hosting four Challengers events in 2024. Sumit Nagal won the Chennai Open and broke into the top 100 of the ATP rankings for the first time in his career. The Bengaluru Open is currently taking place and will be followed by the Pune Open and New Delhi Open.
“All the Challengers in India at this point will get some (financial) help. That’s why they also have the Challenger TV (free streaming service) carrying these events. There is a reason for that, and they are fully aware of it,” Amritraj was quoted as saying on the sidelines of the Chennai Open according to Sportstar.
“They are managing the production cost for all the four Challengers,” he continued.
“This is the first year they have started doing this for the Challengers and it has a lot to do with what they do with the content of Challenger TV. There is a monetary aspect to it that they benefit from. They’re able to then transfer some of that to us to offset some of our costs. That’s the way it works,” Amritraj added.
Vijay Amritraj hopeful of ATP 250s in India
Amritraj, who achieved his career-best ranking of No. 18 back in July 1980, said that India can even host ATP 250 tournaments after enough Challengers.
When Amritraj used to play, most of the Asian countries had a tour-level event. However, the numbers have dropped over the years. Currently, Asia has nine tour-level tournaments for men and 15 for women.
Amritraj stated that there is still time before India can think about hosting ATP 500 and Masters events. He is also of the opinion that India can host more Challengers events in December.
