The Italian city of Milan has been selected to host the first ever ATP Masters event for players under the age of 21.
Last November ATP CEO Kris Kermode announced plans to set up the Masters event with the aim of promoting the talent of the younger players on the tour. At the time Kermode said that he hopes that the tournament will take place after the Paris Masters and before the ATP Finals in order to generate maximum publicity for the event.
“This generation, the reason why I am so excited is because they are from a really wide demographic. We have Australians, Americans coming through. There is also (Borna) Coric, (Alexander) Zverev, (Hyeon) Chung etc.” Kermode said in 2015.
““All of these players are going to be huge superstars.“ He later added.
Milan’s selection of the host venue comes five months after the president of the Italian Tennis Federation, Angelo Binaghi, confirmed that his country was interested in hosting the event. According to Binaghi the tournament will have a prize money fund of one-and-a-half million dollars.
Despite being named the host city of the new event, the venue is yet to be confirmed by the organisers. Milan has a group of venues they could choose from including the 12,00-capacity Mediolanum Forum stadium. The format of the five-day tournament will be similar to that of the ATP Finals with eight players being split into two groups of four. The eight will consist of the seven highest ranked players in the age category plus a wild card.
Overseeing the running of the tournament will be Sergio Palmieri, who is also the tournament director of the WTA Rome Open. Speaking with Italian media, Palmieri has revealed that he is hoping that the event could be hosted at the PalaLido, a multi-purpose sporting venue that has a capacity of just over 5000 people.
“The ideal the headquarters would be the PalaLido, but we must understand the state of the work. Otherwise, we will evaluate the alternatives in the city, and then propose them to the ATP.” Said Palmieri.
This week there are five players aged under 21 ranked in the world’s top 100. The highest is Germany’s Alexander Zverev at 21. Other top 100 entrants include Borna Coric, Karen Khachanov, Taylor Fritz and Francis Tiafoe.
