The king of clay's home is now an ATP grass-court destination.
The ATP announced that the 2020 grass-court swing in the lead-up to The Championships at Wimbledon, will feature a new ATP 250 tournament in Mallorca, replacing the event previously held in Antalya, Turkey, from 2017-2019.
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The Mallorca Championships, featuring €900,000 in prize money, will be held at Santa Ponca from June 20-27th, 2020, in partnership between the AELTC and e|motion sports.
It will be the first time that an ATP Tour tournament has been contested in Mallorca since 2002. Previously, Mallorca hosteda clay-court event from 1998 to 2002.
Spain currently hosts two clay-court events, the Mutua Madrid Masters Open in May and the Barcelona Open Banc Sabadell, a 500-level event, in April.
Toni Nadal, Rafael Nadal's uncle and original coach, will serve as tournament director.
"I am very proud, that there will be an ATP tournament in Mallorca after so many years again," Toni Nadal said in a statement. "We expect to offer the fans a strong line-up in the final week before Wimbledon. After four successful women’s tournaments we are now starting a new, exciting tennis era in Mallorca with this men’s event.”
The new event is part of a major restructuring of grass-court season, which includes the former WTA grass-court event staged in Mallorca moving.
The women’s tournament will be transferred to Birmingham which transferred its WTA Premier event license to Berlin, where the Grass Court Championships Berlin will be held from June 13-21st, 2020.
The women’s tournament in Berlin and the men’s tournament in Mallorca will be organised by e|motion sports, which has already been producing the ATP tour tournament MercedesCup in Stuttgart.
Photo credit: Rafa Nadal Tennis Academy Facebook