On a Wednesday in the desert last March, Reilly Opelka, the American with a cannon of a serve, was grinding out a tough match against French number one Arthur Rinderknech. Nearby, former US Open men’s finalist Kei Nishikori beat Luca Nardi, part of the new wave of Italian talent, while Brazilian phenom Joao Fonseca closed out Pavel Kotov, who reached number 50 in the world in 2024.
These matches could have been plucked right out of the BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, the premier tournament on the pro tennis circuit outside Palm Springs and attended by more than 500,000 fans. But this was Phoenix, at the decidedly less prestigious Arizona Tennis Classic. Each year, the world’s top tennis players descend on the US for the Sunshine Double—BNP in California followed by the Miami Open—those who were cut quickly from the former often stop in for some rallies in Arizona before carrying on to Florida. For spectators it’s one of the game’s best-kept secrets.
Last year a total of 116 pro tennis tournaments were organized worldwide between the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA). And yet the majority of fans and spectators orbit around the big four: the Australian Open, Roland Garros (the French Open), Wimbledon, and the US Open. My message to them is: Forget the Grand Slams. Organizationally, a trip to London for Wimbledon can feel like arranging the D-Day landings. The French Open was always first on my list, but the grounds are small and crowded, and tickets are hard to come by. The Australian Open is perfect, no notes, but it’s on the bottom of the earth, and the US Open…well, it was great before content creation, the Honey Deuce, unreasonably big crowds, and extortionate ticket prices. These lesser tournaments happen year-round and offer high-quality tennis up close, with a fraction of the hassle.
“The majors, while still the most important dates on the calendar, have become exorbitant excursions tailored to corporate clients and the elite, not unlike the Super Bowl,” said Craig Shapiro of the Golden Ticket, a tour operator focusing on well-rounded tennis trips. “Tickets to the big tournaments are oversold. There are even lines at the practice courts.” Shapiro said he is fielding inquiries for trips to places like Gstaad, Switzerland; Buenos Aires; Estoril, Portugal; and Tokyo: “Cities our clients want to explore apart from the tennis.”
There are currently 45 ATP tournaments operating at the lowest level worldwide in places like Mallorca; Dallas; Hong Kong; Bucharest, Romania; Chengdu, China; and Adelaide, Australia, 40 of which are also played by women. These tournaments feature marquee names. Because Novak Djokovic’s family organizes the intimate Hellenic Tennis Championship in Athens, you can expect him to be in the field there. Naomi Osaka, because she represents Japan, is a fixture at events in Tokyo each fall, and Frances Tiafoe can be expected to electrify the fans at the DC Open, his local tournament. Ditto for Carlos Alcaraz in Barcelona.
The small tournaments feel like the US Open did in the ’80s, where I once got Michael Chang’s autograph on a napkin (long since lost) and waited in front of the players’ lounge to get a glimpse of a teenage Boris Becker, who had just won his maiden Wimbledon. More recently I sat next to Jamie Murray on a flight to Montreal ahead of National Bank Open; was too nervous to ask Yannick Noah for his autograph in an airport lounge in Doha, where I had gone to catch the semifinals at the Qatar Open; and talked baseball with former French Open champ Andrés Gómez at the Challenger in Guayaquil, Ecuador.