WTA Releases 2020 Season Calendar

The Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) has unveiled its revived calendar for the year 2020. WTA has made amendments to their schedule by adding two WTA Premier tournaments in Adelaide, Australia and Berlin (Germany) and three new WTA International tournaments in Lyon (France), Bad Homburg (Germany) and Albany (New York, USA). Also, the prize money for all International level events has been incremented. 

The year 2020 will have 60 events on the WTA circuit, which encompass 55 WTA tournaments, four Grand Slams, and the Olympics. The 2020 season will begin with a Premier event in Brisbane and International events in Auckland and Shenzhen on January 6. 

The new hardcourt tournament in Adelaide (relocation from Sydney) will also be taking place during the Australian Summer. It is set to get underway in the second week of January. Simultaneously, an International event will be taking place in Hobart and then followed by the Australian Open.

The shortest season in tennis, which the grass, would comprise two new tournaments one of them in Germany and the Premier event in Berlin (relocation from Birmingham). The International event from Mallorca will replace the Premier event in Birmingham.

The city of Birmingham will be hosting the WTA for the 39th consecutive year. Another tournament in Germany, in the city of Bad Homburg, will host a new grass-court International event (relocation from Istanbul). It is scheduled to get underway on June 22, 2020. The Eastbourne International tournament in England will continue to host a WTA Premier tournament.

The International tournaments in Lyon will begin on March 2, 2020, it is a relocation from Tashkent and will be an indoor hard court event. The WTA event in Albany will commence on August 24, 2020, the tournament is a relocation from Quebec City, it will be played on hard court outdoors and will be taking place before the US Open.

The WTA tournaments have revised their prize money distribution. The 32 International level events will be incrementing their prize money by 10 percent and each tournament will offer at least $275,000.

Further changes in the WTA calendar:

The events St. Petersburg, Russia and Hua Hin will commence on February 10 and Fed Cup will be held from February 3. Dubai Open will host the Premier 700 event, it will start on February 17 and followed by the Premier 5 event in Doha which is scheduled from February 24 alongside Acapulco. Similarly, the Rogers Cup will be held in Montreal in 2020.

Monterrey’s event will be parallel to the event in Lyon. Bogota and Charleston will be taking place simultaneously from April 6. Lugano event will be happening alongside Stuttgart from April 20. The Tokyo Olympics will get underway from July 25 and it will continue until August 2.