Madrid Open (tennis)

History

From its inauguration as a men's only event in 2002, the tournament was classified as one of the ATP Masters Series tournaments, where it replaced the now-defunct Eurocard Open in Stuttgart. It was held in the Madrid Arena from 2002 to 2008, as the first of two Master's indoor hard court late-season events that preceded the ATP Tour Finals (also indoors). It was replaced on the Masters schedule by the Shanghai Masters after the 2008 season. In 2009, the tournament was reborn under new ownership with a new location, new surface, and a new time slot. It expanded to include a premier women's contest (replacing the tournament in Berlin) and shifted to an earlier period of the tennis season to become the second Master's tournament of the spring European clay-court swing (replacing the Hamburg Open). The event moved outdoors to Park Manzanares, where a new complex with a retractable-roof equipped main court was constructed, the Caja Magica.

Țiriac announced in April 2019 that he had extended his sponsorship contract of the Mutua Madrid Open for 10 additional years, until 2031. Because he has agreed to continue in Madrid, Țiriac will receive more than 30 million euros from the city of Madrid in the coming years. Feliciano López was announced as the Madrid tournament director, commencing 2019.

Starting in 2021, the women's tournament, part of the WTA tour, expanded to become a two-week tournament. By December of the same year, it was announced that Tiriac sold the event to IMG, which is now the new organizer and has already planned an expansion of courts, including a new stadium for over 10,000 people, to be built by partly draining the lake circling Caja Magica.

In June 2022, ATP announced some changes to the ATP calendar for the coming year. The ATP Masters 1000 event in Madrid along with those in Shanghai and in Rome would now be held over two weeks starting in 2023, thus becoming 12 day events just like the Masters 1000 events in Indian Wells and Miami.

Blue clay

Țiriac proposed and implemented a new color of blue clay for all the courts' surfaces in 2012, motivating that it would supposedly be better visually, especially for viewers on television (analogous to some hardcourt surface events migrating to blue from various previous color schemes). Some speculated that the adaptation of blue colour was a nod to the titular sponsor of the tournament, the Spanish insurance giant Mutua Madrileña. This controversial change was subsequently granted and began to be used in the 2012 edition of the tournament. In 2009 one of the outer tennis courts had already been made of the new surface for the players to test it. Manuel Santana, the Open's director, had assured that aside from the colour, the surface kept the same properties as the traditional red clay.

On 1 December 2011, Țiriac confirmed that the blue clay surface was officially approved for the 2012 edition of the tournament, in both the ATP and WTA circuits.

However, after the event took place in 2012, threats of future boycotts from some players, especially Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic (who both lost on the blue surface), led the tournament to return to the traditional red clay for the 2013 season. This was due to the blue clay being more slippery than regular clay.

Roger Federer is the only male player to win the tournament on three different surfaces: hard courts (2006), red clay (2009), and blue clay (2012). Serena Williams is the only female player to win the tournament on two different surfaces: blue clay (2012) and red clay (2013).

Prize money and trophies

The prize money awarded in the men's and women's singles tournaments is distributed equally. The total prize money for the 2025 tournament in Euros is . The prize money distribution is as follows:

: Doubles prize money is per team.

Past finals

Men

Singles

Doubles

Women

Singles

Doubles

Records

Notes

References

References

1. (11 May 2019). "Madrid's blue clay given red card by ATP".
2. (8 April 2011). "Madrid Masters goes bling". tennisworldusa.
3. (9 April 2019). "El Ayuntamiento indemnizará al dueño del Mutua Madrid Open con medio millón de euros por la Copa Davis". [[ABC (newspaper).
4. (9 April 2019). "Ion Țiriac a încheiat o nouă super-afacere. Va semna un contract de peste 30 de milioane de euro". [[Digi Sport (Romania).
5. "Feliciano Lopez is going to be Madrid's tournament director".
6. "Madrid Open expands to become a two-week tournament".
7. (6 December 2021). "IMG compra la dueña del Mutua Madrid Open y el Acciona Open de España y ficha a Gerard Tsobanian". [[2playbook]].
8. (2022-06-09). "ATP calendar: Madrid and Rome over two weeks from 2023, Munich advances".
9. AS, Diario. (29 November 2011). "El Mutua Madrid Open se jugará en una pista azul".
10. Benito, Álvaro. (26 June 2012). "Santana: "Se confundió el color de las pistas con el estado de las mismas"". Marca.
11. (December 2011). "Is blue the new red? Madrid's clay court revolution".
12. (11 May 2012). "Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal threaten to boycott Madrid Open if they don't change blue clay-court".
13. (2016-05-08). "Even four year later, bad feelings linger over the blue clay in Madrid". New York Times.
14. (29 December 2024). ""AUSTRALIAN OPEN PRIZE MONEY"".