Tour Offers Aspiring Pros Opportunities with Innovative Format
40 Events Totalling Over $1M in Prize Money Planned in the United States for 2021
December 7, 2020 (Palo Alto, CA) – Universal Tennis (“UT”) (MyUTR.com) today announced the launch of the UTR Pro Tennis Series Tour in the United States. As part of its three year global UTR Pro Tennis Series Tour investing over $20M and enabling 140 worldwide annual events, it will feature 40 events (men and women) in select venues across the USA in 2021. Each event will provide a minimum of $20,000 in player prize money and create more opportunities for elite junior, collegiate and pro players.
The UTR Pro Tennis Series Tour offers an innovative format, providing aspiring pro players with more opportunities to compete, improve their game and support themselves with prize money. All events will be single gender, singles only, entry based on Universal Tennis Rating (UTR), and feature a 32 player group round robin followed by a World Cup-style playoff format. This format guarantees more player competition and results will count for UTR, the world’s most accurate global tennis rating system.
“As part of our mission to support all facets of tennis, the UTR Pro Tennis Series Tour is founded on our desire to create a development tour to support elite players, coaches, organizers and Federations worldwide. The UTR Pro Tennis Series Tour will create more opportunities for aspiring professional players with UTR rankings of 200 to 2000 globally to compete and earn a living while working their way up to the highest level pro tours,” said Mark Leschly, Universal Tennis Chairman and CEO.
The USTA has collaborated with Universal Tennis as it relates to scheduling to ensure that these events are complementary to the competitive calendar. The Series will kick off with 15 events for men and women before the end of the first quarter of 2021 alone and will be held at four marquee venues across the United States. More events and locations will be announced shortly.
“At Charleston Tennis, it’s a guiding principle to support the game of tennis from recreational and junior players through to the highest levels of professional tennis. The UTR Pro Tennis Series Tour will fill a valuable role by providing eager, talented players additional opportunities for high level competitive match play and at the same time the ability to earn a better living. We applaud Universal Tennis for identifying a need and are thrilled that this partnership will allow us to be part of the solution,” said Bob Moran, President Charleston Tennis LLC.
Locations and dates for upcoming UTR Pro Tennis Series events are as follows:
Naples, FL: Sanchez-Casal Academy
December 14, 2020 – Men
January 4, 2021- Women
January 11 – Men
January 18 – Men
March 8 – Men
Newport Beach, CA: The Tennis Club at Newport Beach
January 4 – Men
January 11 – Women
January 18 – Women
January 25 – Women
Las Vegas, NV: Darling Tennis Center
February 8 – Women
February 15 – Women
February 22 – Men
March 1 – Men
Charleston, SC: LTP Academy
March 1- Women
March 8- Women
For more information on the UTR Pro Tennis Series Tour, calendar, prize money, event format, and to register for events, please visit https://www.myutr.com/pts.
Is there a performance bonus set up for players that accomplish something special, aside from just winning? Maybe winning back-to-back or winning an event without losing a set, etc?