South Africa’s rising tennis stars will have an opportunity to chase prestige, prize money and points on home soil later this year,

Tennis SA (TSA) announced yesterday that three weeks of back-to-back International Tennis Federation (ITF) World Tennis Tour prize money events, for both men and women, will be hosted in the country in September.

The series will open with two tournaments in Johannesburg – the newly launched Jozi Open and the SA Spring Open. Each of these tournaments will carry a prize purse of $25 000 (R365 000) for both men and women ($25 000 per gender).

The third and final event, the Tuks International, will be held in Pretoria 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 both launched in 2019 and return after a Covid-disrupted 2020 campaign. Both tournaments have also 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.

Richard Glover, CEO of TSA, has welcomed today’s news.

“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,” Glover commented.

These 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.

This announcement is on the back of recent news that TSA will be also hosting five International Tennis Federation (ITF) events for juniors from late August through to late October, including a high-profile Junior Grade A event, the Samaai Junior Open in Cape Town.

TSA is also hard at work securing more international tournaments to be hosted in South Africa.

“We are currently finalising arrangements for two further ITF World Tennis Tour prize money event weeks in South Africa – to be hosted in the Western Cape, in December 2021 – and hope to be able to confirm these events very soon,” said Glover.

Full schedule of $25 000 prize money events:

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

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