LONDON, Great Britain – The Sony Ericsson WTA Tour announced today that Doha, Qatar, successful host of the 2006 Asian Games, will host the 2008-2010 Sony Ericsson Championships, the most prestigious event on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour. Under terms of the $42 million, three-year agreement, the Sony Ericsson Championships will feature record prize money of $4.45 million, equal to that of the ATP's season-ending Championships, the Tennis Masters Cup. The singles winner's check of $1,485,000 represents the largest single guaranteed payout in women's tennis today. The announcement follows an extensive and competitive global bidding process begun earlier in the year that included expressions of interest from numerous major international cities and that resulted in a four-way finalist bid runoff between Doha; Bangalore, India; Istanbul, Turkey; and Monterrey, Mexico.
The Sony Ericsson Championships in Doha, Qatar will be the season-ending pinnacle of the 2008-2010 Sony Ericsson WTA Tour Calendars. The Tour released today the 2008 and 2009 Calendars, with the 2008 Calendar featuring 60 tournaments in 34 countries offering record prize money of approximately $67 million, and the provisional 2009 streamlined Roadmap Calendar featuring 56 tournaments in 32 countries offering record prize money of approximately $77 million.
"The awarding of our Sony Ericsson Championships to Qatar represents an exciting continuation of our strategy to showcase the very best of women's tennis in different regions and markets throughout the world," said Sony Ericsson WTA Tour CEO Larry Scott. "Doha has been a longstanding supporter of women's tennis, including having held the first women's professional tennis event in the Middle East in 2001, and has demonstrated the ability to successfully host world class sporting events such as the 2006 Asian Games. This agreement, along with the significantly increased prize money to be offered, also demonstrates the value that the Tour's Roadmap circuit structure plans have injected into the sport. I am particularly thrilled that in the year that both Wimbledon and Roland Garros made historic decisions to award equal prize money to the women, our Sony Ericsson Championships will for the first time ever in 2008 offer equal prize money of $4.45 million."
"We are honored that Doha, Qatar will become the new home of the most prestigious and storied tournament on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour," said Sheikh Mohammad Bin Faleh Al Thani, President of the Qatar Tennis Federation. "As the first country in the region to have staged a women's professional tennis event, we are particularly pleased to offer women tennis players equal prize money at the Sony Ericsson Championships for the first time ever. Qatar has proven its ability to host incredibly successful world class sporting events, and we look forward to welcoming the world's best female athletes and making the Sony Ericsson Championships in 2008-2010 the best season-ending finale ever."
"I'm really excited that Doha will host our Sony Ericsson Championships beginning in 2008," said Amélie Mauresmo , Sony Ericsson WTA Tour World No. 4 and defending Wimbledon champion. "Players really enjoy playing in Doha. We're a global sport and it's great that we are able to feature our very best event in different regions of the world, whether it's Europe, the US, the Middle East or elsewhere."
"We are pleased with the decision to hold the 2008 Sony Ericsson Championships in Doha, Qatar. We are a global company with operations in all key markets around the world, and after holding the event in the US and Europe, we believe it is a natural move to take it to the Gulf Area, which is an important market region for Sony Ericsson," said Dee Dutta, Global Head of Marketing, Sony Ericsson. "We look forward to building on the successes of the Los Angeles and Madrid events, both on the court and through our exciting off-court initiatives, which aim to broaden the appeal of the sport by taking tennis to a totally new audience. Additionally it is fantastic news that the 2008 championships will bring us in line with the men's end of season event in terms of equal prize money."
The 2008 Sony Ericsson Championships in Doha, Qatar will take place in the Khalifa International Tennis Complex, a world-class facility that has been the home of the Qatar Total Open event on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour since 2001. As part of the deal, the Qatar Tennis Federation plans to expand and enhance the existing facility.
In 2006, Doha hosted the 15th annual Asian Games, the second biggest multi-discipline sporting event in the world following the Summer Olympic Games. The event was universally considered a fantastic success, with 10,000 athletes from 45 countries competing in 39 different sports and 21 separate venues, all of which was globally broadcast by 28 networks across 20 counties. Doha also is and has been the home of a number of other prestigious sporting events, including the Qatar Masters European PGA Tour event, World F1 Powerboat Championships, Qatar MotoGP motorcycle Grand Prix, Qatar Superbike World Championships, and the IAAF Qatar International Grand Prix Championship, among others. The Qatar Tennis Federation also owns and operates the successful Sony Ericsson WTA Tour tournament in Berlin, the Qatar Telecom German Open.
The Sony Ericsson Championships, which features the top 8 singles players and top 4 doubles teams, has become one of the most coveted sporting events in the world, which as part of the Tour's strategy has been showcased in different key markets around the globe in world class venues. Over the course of the past years, with the addition of Sony Ericsson as title sponsor and an incredibly successful inaugural year in Madrid, the event has reached new levels of popularity, prestige and global exposure.
In its storied history dating back to 1972, the Sony Ericsson Championships has been held in the internationally renowned cities of New York, Munich, Los Angeles and Madrid.
http://www.sonyericssonwtatour.com/1/newsroom/stories/?ContentID=1482
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