The Washington Open (currently sponsored by Citi bank) is a joint professional tennis tournament played on outdoor hard courts, and held annually in late July or early August at the William H.G. FitzGerald Tennis Center in Rock Creek Park, Washington, D.C., United States. The Citi Open is part of the ATP World Tour 500 series on the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) World Tour, and of the WTA International tournaments on the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) Tour. Until 2015, the men's competition was part of the US Open Series, a North American lead-up of events to the last Grand Slam tournament of the season, the US Open, in New York City. The 2017 edition will take place from July 29 to August 6.
History
The tournament was first held on the men's tour in 1969, known as the Washington Star International between 1969 and 1981, as the Sovran Bank Classic from 1982 to 1992, as the Newsweek Tennis Classic in 1993, and as the Legg Mason Tennis Classic from 1994 to 2011. Competition was held on outdoor clay courts until 1986, when it switched to the current hard courts. Throughout its existence, the tournament has been closely associated with Donald Dell, founder of ProServ International, who was instrumental in its creation, as well as John A. Harris of Potomac Investments. The location of the event in Washington, D.C. was chosen at the urging of Arthur Ashe, an early supporter.
The women's event was first held in 2011 in College Park, Maryland as the Citi Open, and for the 2012 season, the ATP and WTA decided to merge their Maryland and Washington spots into a joint tournament, with the women's event moving to the William H.G. FitzGerald Tennis Center, and Citi taking over Legg Mason as title sponsor of the joint event.
As of the 2015 edition, the Washington Open is no longer considered part of the US Open Series. Due to its ownership of rights to the US Open, ESPN holds exclusive broadcast rights to all US Open Series events in the United States. However, ESPN devoted limited television coverage to the Citi Open in its first year as rightsholder, delegating the majority of the tournament to online streams under the ESPN3 brand, and only showing four hours of coverage on its television channels. Donald Dell criticized ESPN for using ESPN3 to acquire sports rights without any intent to broadcast them on television, stating that "if you're running a tournament, and it's two million dollars, and sponsorship money in the six million to eight million dollar range, you've got sponsors that don't want to be having only four or six hours on television." As a result, the Citi Open withdrew from the US Open Series so it could establish a new broadcast rights agreement with Tennis Channel. The four-year, $2.1 million deal includes 171 hours of television coverage spanning the entire tournament.
Past finals
In the men's singles, Andre Agassi (1990â€"91, 1995, 1998â€"99) holds the records for most titles (five) and most finals overall (six, runner-up in 2000). He also shares with Michael Chang (1996â€"97) and Juan MartÃn del Potro (2008â€"09) the record for most consecutive titles, with two. In the women's singles, Magdaléna Rybáriková (2012â€"13) holds the record for most titles (two) and co-holds the record for most finals (two) with Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (runner-up in 2012, 2015). In the men's doubles, Marty Riessen (1971â€"72, 1974, 1979) and the Bryan brothers (2005â€"07, 2015) hold the record for most titles (four), with the Bryans also holding the record for most consecutive titles (three). The Bryans co-hold the record for most finals (six, runners-up in 2001â€"02) with Raúl RamÃrez (winner in 1976, 1981â€"82, runner-up in 1975, 1978â€"79). In the women's doubles, Shuko Aoyama (2012â€"14) holds alone the record for most titles, most consecutive titles and most finals (three).
Men's singles
Women's singles
Men's doubles
Women's doubles
References
External links
- Official website
- Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) tournament profile
