ATLANTA — Atlanta's annual tennis showcase at Atlantic Station will be no more after next year, Atlanta Open tournament organizers announced Wednesday.
The Atlanta Open has been a fixture on the city's sporting calendar since 2010, offering an accessible 250-level tournament atmosphere for stars of the game that have included over the years Andy Roddick, John Isner and Nick Kyrgios.
But after 2024, the tournament is being retired by the pro men's tennis tour, the ATP Tour, along with five other 250-level tournaments. The ATP Tour is making way with those retirements for upgrades to 500-level status for tournaments in Dallas; Munich, Germany; and Doha, Qatar.
“The 2024 Atlanta Open will be a celebration of past champions and the great 15-year run of the tournament, giving us a chance to honor and celebrate the tremendous support we’ve received from the city, the tennis community, and local universities over the years," the Atlanta Open tournament director, Peter Lebedevs, said in a statement. "We’re thankful for the wonderful memories we’ve made in Atlanta and are working to return in some capacity and bring professional tennis back to this great city."
The farewell of the Atlanta Open comes at a particularly inopportune time, with the city's tennis scene boosted this year after a Cinderella run at Wimbledon by Atlanta native Chris Eubanks as well as the rising star of two other young players born in Atlanta, U.S. Open champion Coco Gauff and U.S. Open semifinalist Ben Shelton.
The Atlanta tournament has served for the last decade-plus as one of the warm-up tournaments that lead into the U.S. Open, and has often been a proving ground for young American contenders including Frances Tiafoe and Taylor Fritz and an earlier generation that included Isner, Donald Young and Jack Sock.
Isner, a former Georgia Bulldog, in particular made the tournament one of his favorites - winning it six times.