Dubai: The stature of the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships will go up even further with the prize money being increased to $2 million for both the men's and women's tournaments from next year.
"We have been among the first tournaments offering equal prize money to both the Tours, and we are glad to chart a new course with a further increase in the fund from next season," said Colm McLoughlin, Managing Director of Dubai Duty Free.
"The total prize money for each tournament will go up to $2 million in 2009."
The men's tournament began as a Grand Prix event in 1993 with prize money in excess of $1 million before it was upgraded to an 'International Series' event from 1998 till 2000.
From 2001, it was classified as an 'International Series Gold' event with a prize fund of close to $1 million.
Since last year, both the men's and women's tournaments offered $1.5 million each in prize money.
From next year, the men's tournament will become a '500' tournament offering 500 points to the winner along with a prize fund of $2 million, while the women's competition will be one of 20 'Premium' events on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour with an identical prize purse.
From 2009, ATP tournaments will be classified as 1000 series, 500 series and 250 series. Dubai is part of the 500 series along with Rotterdam, Acapulco, Memphis, Barcelona, Washington, Beijing, Tokyo, Basel and Valencia.
"Our endeavour has always been to innovate each year. We've had a whole load of new aspects this year, starting off with a new title sponsor in Barclays," McLoughlin stated.
