Calling all rising tennis stars! This is your shot at $25 000

South Africa’s rising tennis stars will have an opportunity to chase prestige, prize money and points on home soil, with Tennis South Africa (TSA) confirming three weeks of back-to-back International Tennis Federation (ITF) World Tennis Tour prize money events for men and women in the country later this year.

The series will open with two tournaments in September – the newly launched Jozi Open and the SA Spring Open. Both will be hosted in the City of Gold, with each carrying a prize purse of $25 000 (R365 000) for men and women respectively.

The third and final event, the Tuks International, will be held in Tshwane and will also have a prize money pot of $25 000 for both men and women respectively. The Spring Open and Tuks International tournaments were launched in 2019, and return after a Covid-disrupted 2020 campaign. Both tournaments have seen their prize money allocations increased from $15 000 to $25 000 per gender.

The Spring Open tournament also features a Wheelchair Tennis Grade II event with a prize money pot of $22,000 for women, men and quads combined.

CEO of TSA, Richard Glover welcomed the news saying, “We are delighted to see the return of international tennis to South Africa after a pandemic enforced delay. The three back-to-back weeks of $25 000 prize money events will attract an exciting mix of both local and international players, and will take place with strict Covid-19 safety protocols in place.”

The three prize money events form part of the ITF World Tennis Tour, which is the umbrella name for all former ITF pro circuit (Futures) tournaments and serves as the ITF’s pathway from the junior game into the elite levels of professional tennis.

Full schedule of $25 000 prize money events:

• September 13–19: Jozi Open, $25 000 Combined Event (Marks Park Sports Club, Emmarentia)
• September 20–26: SA Spring Open, $25 000 Combined Event and Wheelchair Tennis Grade II (Ellis Park, Johannesburg)
• September 27 – October 3: Tuks International, $25 000 Combined Event (University of Pretoria, Pretoria)