The Cincinnati Open (formerly known as the Cincinnati Masters) is an annual professional tennis event held in Cincinnati, United States. It is played on outdoor hard courts at the Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason, Ohio, and is held in August. The event started on September 18, 1899, and is the oldest tennis tournament in the United States still played in (or near) its original city.[1][2] It also is the third largest tennis event in the United States, after the US Open and the Indian Wells Masters. It is one of the ATP Masters 1000 tournaments on the ATP Tour, and one of the WTA 1000 tournaments on the WTA Tour.[3]
History
The tournament was started in 1899 as the Cincinnati Open and was renamed in 1901 to Tri-State Tennis Tournament, a name it would keep until 1969 (it would later be known by several other names, including ATP Championships),[4] and would eventually grow into the tournament now held in Mason.[5] The original tournament was held at the Avondale Athletic Club, which sat on property that is now Xavier University, and would later be moved to various locations due to changes in tournament management and surfaces. The first tournament in 1899 was played on clay courts (described in a newspaper article of the time as “crushed brick dust”), and the event was mostly played on clay until 1979 when it switched to hardcourts.
In 1903, the tournament was moved to the Cincinnati Tennis Club, where it was primarily held until 1972. In 1974, the tournament was nearly dropped from the tennis calendar but moved at the last moment to the Cincinnati Convention Center, where it was played indoors and, for the first time since 1919, without a women’s draw. In 1975, the tournament moved to the Coney Island amusement park on the Ohio River, and the tournament began to gain momentum again.
In 1979 the tournament moved to Mason where a permanent stadium was built and the surface was changed from Har-Tru clay to hardcourt (DecoTurf II.). Later, two other permanent stadia were constructed, making Cincinnati the only tennis tournament outside the four Grand Slam events with three stadium courts – Center Court, Grandstand Court and Court 3. A new Court 3 was built in 2010, increasing the number of stadium courts to four, with the existing Court 3 renamed Court 9. The women’s competition was reinstated in 1988 for one year, and then again in 2004 when the organizers, with the help of the Octagon sports agency, bought the Croatian Bol Ladies Open and moved it to Cincinnati.
Between 1981 and 1989 it was a major tournament on the men’s Grand Prix Tennis Tour and part of the Grand Prix Super Series.
In August 2008, the men’s tournament was sold to the United States Tennis Association, the owners of the US Open.[6]
In 2002, the tournament was sponsored for the first time by Western & Southern Financial Group, with the company continuing its sponsorship until at least 2016.[7] In 2011 the men’s and women’s tournaments were played in the same week, and the name changed from the “Western & Southern Financial Group Masters and Women’s Open” to the “Western & Southern Open”.[4]
In 2022, the tournament was sold by the USTA to Ben Navarro’s Beemok Capital;[8] in 2023, the tournament proposed an additional $22.5 million in state funding to help cover a proposed $150 million expansion to the Lindner Family Tennis Center, which included plans for the Cincinnati Open to expand to a 12-day format with a 96-player draw (joining the Indian Wells Open, Madrid Open, and Miami Open) and add additional programming.[9] In May 2023, rumors emerged that Beemok was considering relocating the tournament to a proposed $400 million tennis complex in Charlotte, North Carolina. Beemok denied that relocation was being considered, stating, “We’ve had productive conversations with state and local representatives in Mason and the surrounding area and have made considerable efforts to develop a potential master plan to expand the event in its current location.”[2] In June 2023, the city proposed a $15 million commitment and other economic incentives to keep the tournament in Mason, while State Senator Steve Wilson proposed a $25 million contribution and a $1 billion “super-capital improvement fund” for a state budget proposal.[10]
In October 2023, Beemok announced that the tournament would remain in Mason and expand to a 12-day format for 2025, with both draws expanding from 56 to 96 players.[11][12] With the changes, Western & Southern exited its title sponsorship agreement, and the tournament returned to the “Cincinnati Open” name. The tournament also changed its sponsorship model to incorporate six “cornerstone” sponsors—including Western & Southern, Credit One Bank, Fifth Third Bank, Great American Insurance Group, Kroger, and Procter & Gamble.[13][14]
Paul M. Flory
In 1975, the tournament reins were taken by Paul M. Flory, then an executive with Procter & Gamble. During his tenure, the tournament enriched its considerable heritage while
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