Nottingham will be ready for return of international tennis, says Paul Hutchins
By Nottingham Post | Posted: February 20, 2014
"IT'S funny," smiled Paul Hutchins. "When I was in a taxi this morning the driver asked me why I was in Nottingham so I told him and he said 'oh great, does that mean the Nottingham Open is coming back?'.
"People do remember that tournament so fondly because it was here for over ten years. I think it will be good."
It will be better than good. When top-level international men's tennis returns to the city in 2015, it will be the third biggest grass court men's tournament in the country, behind only Wimbledon and Queen's.
Sandwiched between those two world-famous events, some of the top players on the planet will play at the Nottingham Tennis Centre in Beeston, although, unfortunately, Hutchins, a former Davis Cup captain and now an important figure at the Lawn Tennis Association, cannot promise the reigning Wimbledon champion Andy Murray will be one of them to play NG7 as well as SW19. But he could be.
"It would be great if he does," he said. "But he wouldn't decide until the last minute if he came because after Paris (the French Open) he would play Queen's and then decide whether to come the week before Wimbledon.
"I think the standard will be very high, at least as high as it used to be and even higher."
That is an exciting prospect indeed, given the old Open was won by the likes of Sebastien Grosjean, Jonas Bjorkman, Richard Gasquet, Ivo Karlovic and former British No.1 Greg Rusedski.
Beginning way back in 1995, the Open was played for 14 years until it ended in 2008 and was moved to Eastbourne to become part of a new combined men's and women's tournament, which is now all rather ironic because as well as the men's ATP World Tour event returning to Nottingham the city will also be staging top-level WTA women's tennis for three years from next year. Just two weeks before the men's event in June, in fact.
"I was thinking we almost should call June 2015 'Nottingham tennis month' or something like that," said Hutchins, who will be tournament director.
"I was thinking of a strap-line to discuss internally at the LTA because it's going to be a festival of tennis.
"We, as a governing body, are very much into participation so we're going to have over those three weeks or in the month of June 2015 big participation activities to try and get as many people in Nottingham involved in tennis.
"There is a lot of work to be done because Nottingham will probably be one of the few cities in the world to host two events over a very short period of time."
That work will involve upgrading the Tennis Centre. Having not hosted any major international tennis for almost six years, it has fallen behind the times, says Hutchins.
"We're in talks with the city council about the tennis centre and there needs to be some upgrades because, even since the Nottingham Open used to be here, the facilities required for the players at international tournaments have moved on," he said.
"The courts will be fine, the courts are the area of the tennis centre that are really good.
"In fact, they are probably some of the best in the country.
"Its size is not a problem either. It's the largest tennis centre in the country, apart from Wimbledon.
"It's the other facilities that we need to look at upgrading and I've already spoken to city council and we're meeting onsite in a few weeks time to have a look at exactly what upgrades we need to do.
"In the WTA and ATP particularly, the medical facilities have gone to a completely new height as far as the requirements for the players to have drug testing.
"We're going to have to look at the players area as well. There's a lot to do."
Hutchins would not say how much money will be invested into the Tennis Centre to complete the necessary upgrading of the site, but he was more forthcoming about the potential prize money on offer to the winners of the new men's and women's events.
"We haven't absolutely finalised the prize money," he said. "But it's a minimum of 500,000 euros for the men and the women's will probably be around $250,000, so they're big events.
"They're not quite as big as Queen's, but it's getting up there and it will be really great.
"The women's tournament will be here for three years and it hasn't been decided how long the men will be here," Hutchins added.
"There are so many people involved – there's ATP, WTA, ITF, LTA, All England Club as well as the international calendar – and all these things need to be looked at and, therefore, at the moment we've only got it plugged in for one year, but I don't think there is any desire to bounce it around or anything."
It will, hopefully then, be back for a long time to come. New balls please.