Dubai Colm McLoughlin insists there will be no immediate status shift for the successful Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
The UAE event has been at the forefront in the ATP's 500 event category, picking up its eighth ‘best tournament' award in the past nine years this week.
In the ATP's tournament hierarchy, the next big thing after the four Grand Slams is the year-ending Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, followed by the nine ATP World Tour Masters 1000 events and then the 11 ATP World Tour 500 competitions. In addition, there are 40 ATP World Tour 250 tournaments, making a total of 62 tournaments played in 31 countries.
But Mcloughlin, the Executive Vice-Chairman of event organisers Dubai Duty Free, told Gulf News that he sees no benefit in the tournament going for Masters status.
"I am not convinced that we need to try and get a Masters at all," he said.
"I've heard people say it and this would be a desirable thing if there was going to be a fifth Grand Slam. That would make sense.
"But it doesn't really make sense to me to go after a Masters event as we have as good an entry list in our men's and women's competitions already. So why go for something higher when we already have it?"
Best in the world
On Dubai's latest award, McLoughlin added: "I am very happy as it is voted on by the players and nobody else has anything to do with it. They like coming to Dubai, they like our tournament, they like how it has grown and so they have repeatedly voted us as the best in the world.
"I am not only happy about the award, but I am happy because it indicates what a great job our staff are doing in operating our very own tournament."
If there is a change at the Aviation Club-based Dubai Tennis Stadium, it will come in the seating arrangements, with the capacity being pushed up by at least 1,500 on top of the present 5,000.
"Our capacity is 5,000 and on the final night with the kind of players we get, especially in the men's week, it would be nice to have another couple of thousand seats more," McLoughlin said.
Carnival atmosphere
"But we would not change the venue if we were starting again.
"It has built up to a nice kind of carnival thing here and this is what we set out to do at the beginning.
"People enjoy very much the surroundings that include the Irish Village, the Century Village and all the different restaurants. So all this will stay.
"We do have a long-term plan already on paper, but it's not been decided to enlarge this stadium by putting in the additional seating.
"These changes would not be next year, but later than that."
Hotel: fantastic addition
The Dubai Duty Free's new 293-room hotel will be a fantastic addition to the Dubai Tennis Championships, according to Colm McLoughlin.
"We already have a contract done with the Jumeirah Group to maintain the hotel and it will be called the ‘Jumeirah Creekside Hotel'," he told Gulf News.
"If we were to start all over again then we would have built our own hotel much earlier. The hotel will now be completed and we hope to open it by June.
"The hotel totally completes the picture.
"It will be a fantastic addition to these championships as the players will now be able to live on-site as well as dine and exercise and use the gym and do the practice and everything as we have nine other courts here as well."
