World Tour Finals to remain in London

New sponsorhip deal is announced by ATP, with confirmation that London will continue to host the World Tour Finals, until 2020 ...........

http://www.atpworldtour.com/en/news/nitto-atp-finals-in-london-through-2020

Makes sense. Follows the French Masters. Fairly easy-to-get-to venue. Big crowds. What's not to like.

Yep ..... most successful indoor tourney venue ever, in terms of attendances over the course of a week.

I've always said I'd like to see this in tennis nations that don't get a big event like Eastern Europe or Spain or Asia rather than London that already has Wimbledon. Good for diversification of game.

However, there are not many players that can consisitently sell 15,000 tickets on a Tuesday night no matter who is playing. Money talks.

Joke decision. The point of the ATP WTF is to spread the game to new regions. Should've been held in India or Dubai

Jermaine2015 wrote:Joke decision. The point of the ATP WTF is to spread the game to new regions. Should've been held in India or Dubai

Or Qatar?

Based on this - http://www.atpworldtour.com/en/tournaments/tournament-map - there is only 1 tourney in the entire African continent. This one - http://www.atpworldtour.com/en/tournaments/marrakech/360/overview .

I have to say I should like the fact that it is on in London and I have been over to it and really enjoyed it. However, surely it is time to spread the love a bit and host it somewhere else. Wimbledon is already on in the UK, for me its a bit much that they keep playing this in London too. I totally understand why from a commercial perspective but I would love to see another country host it.

I lament the fact that here in Ireland we don't produce many tennis players but hosting a tournament like this would be huge and we are a sports mad country, if this was held in Dublin I think they would get a brilliant turnout for the matches. also helps we are in the same time zone. Air access is really good, Dublin airport is the fastest growing airport in Europe. We are hoping to host the Rugby world cup in 2023.

I think something like the ATP finals would be amazing over here but just a bit of bias there. I thought the whole point of these tournaments was to spread the game to other countries looking to develop the game. Even if they could play an ATP 500 event over here, I know it would be really well supported as a starting point

Would love to see that happen myself slasher but realistically the Irish sports market is already incredibly saturated. I also tend to think tennis just isn't a sport that fits well with the Irish psyche (and we certainly don't have the ideal climate either) however if I know one thing about us it's that we love a bandwagon - so you just never know...

sirfredperry wrote:

Jermaine2015 wrote:Joke decision. The point of the ATP WTF is to spread the game to new regions. Should've been held in India or Dubai

Or Qatar?

Yes Qatar is another viable option. Also as LF mentioned somewhere in the Africas would spread the game. Also South America would be a viable option as that bloc has created many greats over the years.

laverfan wrote:Based on this - http://www.atpworldtour.com/en/tournaments/tournament-map - there is only 1 tourney in the entire African continent. This one - http://www.atpworldtour.com/en/tournaments/marrakech/360/overview .

Why do you find it so upsetting? I don't see any indigenous African sports being spread elsewhere.

theslosty I hear what you are saying about the Irish sports marketing being saturated but I would be very confident if some of the top names were coming over the curious Irish public would get behind it. Certainly when the likes of US Open, Wimbledon come around a huge Irish audience tunes in to watch it.

While the Irish climate is not ideal, Dublin is considerably drier than other parts of the country. Believe it or not Dublin statistically gets less rain every year than London, though our summers tend to average about 3-4 degrees cooler. Certainly in the west and south, climate would be an issue. Then look at Wimbledon, that is part of the reason they had to get a roof because of the constant rain delays !!!

I guess it just frustrates me that there are so few Irish coming through. James McGee, Conor Niland and Louk Sorenson are the only ones to make the main draw of a grand slam from Ireland in the last 5 or 6 years. For a country like Ireland that overperforms really given our smaller population in the likes of Rugby, Soccer, Golf etc. I would just love to see Tennis take off but until there is decent funding and hosting a big tournament, hard to see how this will ever change.

Lots of nice tennis clubs around the country but I am presuming there just isn't enough funding.