Dubai: The Dubai Sports City (DSC) is the early favourite in the bid to host the annual Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships, starting from next year.
"After initial talks, the Dubai Sports City seems to be the likely option for us to move to a new venue from as early as next year," Tournament Director Salah Tahlak told Gulf News.
"We already have two offers made to us, and one is the new facility coming up at the Dubai Sports City."
It is reliably learned that the other venue reportedly in the running for the tournament is the new Emirates facility along the Dubai-Al Ain highway.
Tournament organisers and owners Dubai Duty Free have been on the lookout in recent years to shift the annual two-week competition to a new venue, pressurised by the growing demand on a centralised location like the Dubai Tennis Stadium in Al Garhoud.
With Dubai undergoing a huge construction boom, it looks unlikely that the present facility and the surrounding area may stay untouched for too long. Traffic and the congestion following it is just one of the issues organisers have been trying to sort out.
In addition, the event has grown substantially since the inaugural edition in 1993. Under the new format announced by the ATP, the governing body for men's professional tennis circuit, Dubai is one of 10 cities that have been awarded '500' status for the new-look 2009 ATP Tour.
Dubai has been one of the few cities offering equal prize money to both men's and women's tournaments. Offering 500 ranking points for each champion, the '500' events will create a global standard tier of premium tournaments and ensure a stronger broadcast and sponsor proposition starting from next year.
Requisites
Officials from the ATP have already visited Dubai as part of their exercise to ensure that the city meets stipulations needed to organise such a tournament. And one of the requisites is that a '500' tournament is supposed to have a seating capacity of at least 8,000.
A similar evolution has taken place on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour with the Dubai tournament getting the status of a premier event under the new schedule starting from next year.
"We have to keep up with the times, but we are not going to compromise on any part of this event at any point of time. The endeavour will be to replicate everything that we have at this venue - the atmosphere, the glamour, the friendliness - at the new venue," Tahlak affirmed.
"The people at Dubai Sports City have immediately understood what we want. But it is still to early to say that we have decided on the shift already," Tahlak clarified.
Talks with the DSC authorities will be continued in earnest after the men's competition concludes next week. "Nothing has been discussed so far. We have two choices and we feel the Dubai Sports City will be the better one for us. After early talks, they have immediately understood what we want," Tahlak stated.
Due to think this move might help the UAE achieve a successful Olympic bid? Would you like the Olympics to be hosted here? What impact will this have on sports in the region?
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