"We obviously remain open": Monte-Carlo Masters opens up possibility of having women's tennis in future

The tournament director of the Monte-Carlo Masters, David Massey, has opened up about the possibility of having the women’s version of the competition in the future. The ATP 1000 ever is one of the most high-profile competition in men’s tennis. It has been played since 1968 but surprisingly, it never featured women’s tennis.

Tournament director Massey was recently quoted in a report by the English media outlet Daily Express. In the report, he stated that the competition remains open to the possibility of having women players play in the future, but as things stand, there are no plans to change in the near future. He also stated that the WTA never pressured them to add women’s tennis to the competition.

“I think at this stage right now there are no concrete plans to change our format,” he said ahead of Sunday’s final of the competition. “We obviously remain open to introducing the WTA into our competition into the tournament. I believe that would require us to have more days for the event and a shift in date by at least one week to accommodate that. Nothing planned at this stage but not to be ruled out in the future either. The best product I believe would be a combined event and not back to back. So we are really, if it does happen in the future, it will be combined. Having said that, I think that the format we have right now works extremely well with a men's competition. I wouldn't say pressure, no. I wouldn't use the word ‘pressure’. But again, we are not in active discussion to integrate a WTA tournament at this stage. There is no pressure; nor are we saying that we would never do that either. It's just not an action item at this point.”

In this year’s competition, Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz lifted the title for the first time in his career after beating Italy’s Lorenzo Musetti in the final with a score of 3-6, 6-1, 6-0.