Western & Southern Open
| Cincinnati Masters | |||||||||
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| Tournament information | |||||||||
| Founded | 1899 | ||||||||
| Location |
Cincinnati United States |
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| Venue | Lindner Family Tennis Center | ||||||||
| Surface | Hard (DecoTurf), Outdoors | ||||||||
| Website | Official website | ||||||||
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| ATP World Tour | |
|---|---|
| Category | Masters 1000 |
| Draw | 56S / 32Q / 24D |
| Prize money | US$3,200,000 |
| WTA Tour | |
|---|---|
| Category | Premier 5 |
| Draw | 48S / 32Q / 28D |
| Prize money | US$2,804,000 |
The Cincinnati Masters (currently sponsored by the Western & Southern Financial Group and called the Western & Southern Open) is an annual outdoor hardcourt tennis event held in Mason, Ohio near Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. The event started on September 18, 1899 and is the oldest tennis tournament in the United States played in its original city.
The tournament is the second largest summer tennis event in the U.S. after the U.S. Open, as its men's portion is one of nine elite Masters 1000 tournaments on the ATP World Tour and its women's event is one of five Premier 5 events on the WTA Tour.
The tournament was started in 1899 as the Cincinnati Open and was renamed in 1901 to Tri-State Tennis Tournament, a name it would keep until 1969 (it would later be known by several other names, including ATP Championships), and would eventually grow into the tournament now held in Mason. The original tournament was held at the Avondale Athletic Club, which sat on property that is now Xavier University, and would later be moved to several various locations due to changes in tournament management and surfaces. The first tournament in 1899 was played on clay courts (described in a newspaper article of the time as "crushed brick dust"), and the event was mostly played on clay until 1979 when it switched permanently to hardcourts.
In 1903, the tournament was moved to the Cincinnati Tennis Club, where it was primarily held until 1972. In 1974, the tournament was nearly dropped from the tennis calendar but moved at the last moment to the Cincinnati Convention Center, where it was played indoors and, for the first time since 1919, without a women's draw. In 1975, the tournament moved to the Coney Island amusement park on the Ohio River, and the tournament began to gain momentum again.
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