ATP Champions Tour Reveals 2009 Calendar

The Tour will kick off at the Sabadell Atlantico Open in Barcelona on the 16th of April before travelling to many other countries around the globe including well-established tournaments in Paris and London.

Last year, seven-time Wimbledon titlist Pete Sampras and former World No.1 Stefan Edberg both made their circuit debuts, winning maiden Tour titles in Sao Paulo and Paris respectively. The pair will both return to action this year alongside longstanding Tour favourites Goran Ivanisevic, Pat Cash and Henri Leconte.

Other highlights on the Tour in 2008 included several heated showdowns between old rivals John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg, and maiden ATP Champions Tour titles for Richard Krajicek on home turf in Eindhoven and for Pat Rafter in his debut event in Graz. Former Grand Slam champions Michael Chang and Yevgeny Kafelnikov also made their first appearances on the circuit. Ivanisevic finished the year atop the South African Airways rankings, but it was Cedric Pioline who surprised everyone by winning the Tour’s year-ending event at the Royal Albert Hall in London. The Frenchman defeated Sampras in the round-robin stages of the tournament, and went on to down Greg Rusedski in a thrilling final.

After the first event of 2009 in Barcelona, the circuit will move on to Sao Paulo (Brazil), and then Algarve (Portugal). Tournaments will take place mostly over four days, with eight-man fields divided into two groups of four. All players in each group will play each other over a round-robin format, and after all round-robin matches are complete, the top player in each group will meet in the final. The runners-up in each group will play off for the third place position. Matches are played over the best of three sets with a Champions’ Tie-break (first to 10 points with a clear advantage of two) deciding the winner of matches that are tied at one-set-all.

To qualify to play on the ATP Champions Tour, players must have been either a World No.1 singles player, a Grand Slam singles finalist or a singles player on a Davis Cup-winning team. Each event can also invite two wild cards of its choice.