Russia Mounting Bid To Host ATP Finals In Moscow

The ATP is considering relocating their end-of-year World Tour Finals from London to Moscow, according to Russian sources familiar with the potential move.

November’s $7 million tournament has been hosted annually at the O2 Arena in London since 2009. Last year the British capital signed a contract to keep hosting the event until 2018. Within the past seven years they have welcomed 1.8 million viewers to the venue to make it one of the biggest indoor tennis tournaments in the world.

Since 1970 the ATP Finals has been hosted in 16 cities with London staging the event for the second longest period in history (after New York 1977-1989). It has never taken place in Russia, but Andrei Peregoudov is aiming to change that. Peregudov, who is the head of the VTB Arena Park project, has already talked with the ATP about moving the event to the new VTB Arena.

“I have shown the ATP management around our arena and now they are thinking about giving a shake to the history (of holding ATP tournaments),” Peregudov said in an interview with TASS. “The O2 Arena, which has been hosting the tournament, is a good venue, but the changes are necessary.”

The VTB Arena is set to have a seating capacity of 27,000. According to TASS, the first sporting event at the venue will take place on October 22nd 2017 to coincide with the birthday of Lev Yashin, who passed away in 1990. Yashin is regarded as one of Russia’s greatest goalkeepers of all-time.

Last week Moscow hosted the Kremlin Cup, a combined event for both the men and women. The tournament, which has staged successful competitions since the early 1990s, is currently categorized as a 250 event by the ATP and as a Premier tournament on the WTA Tour.

If Moscow was successful in their bid, the earliest they could host the venue will be in 2019. Despite the country’s high presence on the tennis circuit, they have never held the men’s or women’s end-of-year tournament.

Controversial choice

A potential move to Russia could come under fire by some members of the tennis community following Russia’s recent doping scandals. Two separate investigations have found the country guilty of state-sponsored doping. The first involved their track and field team, who was banned from this year’s Olympic Games. A few months later, the first part of the McLaren report found that officials manipulated and tampered with doping samples during the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games. The second part of the report is expected top be published in December. In both reports there has been no evidence to suggest wrongdoing in Russian tennis.

List of ATP World Tour Finals host cities