New international women's tournaments have been added to TC EMPIRE Trnava's schedule with unveiling the new ITF World Tennis Tour 2019 season. By the year 2018, four EMPIRE Women's Indoor tournaments took place in Trnava in February, but from 2019 season the prize money will raise from 15 000 USD to 25 000. The innovation is to organize two tournaments in a row. The first one will be running February 4-10th, the upcoming tournaments February 11-17th. Both in Trnava.
A new building of the EMPIRE Tennis Academy, with four hard court surfaces of the Plexipave Plexicushion Prestige was completed at the club. This was one of the reasons organize new tournaments with bigger prize money. "We wanted to create a new series of indoor tournaments. At the same time, we were planning to adapt the new ITF World Tennis Tour schedule, where women's points from 25 000 USD tournaments goes directly into the WTA rankings. It is attractive for players and we expect very good participation. Besides, other similar tournaments are not running on at that time," said Tomas Boleman, Sports Director of TC EMPIRE Trnava for www.tcempire.sk.
Winner of singles earn 50 points in the WTA ranking, runner-up 30, semifinalists 18 and quarter-finals 9 points. If player advanced to second round, has got 5 points, losing in the first round gives everybody one WTA point. One point will also be winners of the singles qualification, where will be 24 participants.
Two tournaments at a close distance will be a great challenge for hosts. They want to set perfect competitions, so everything works well. "It will be challenging. Especially, for example, for players eliminated in the first tournament, if they would like to stay in our club and wait for the second competition. There will be plenty of players, which is demanding for organizers, if you want to have everything great. We need to prepare for them the training courts, for example. But we will try to make maximum, fulfill all needs. We have experience with international events, already, including organizing the biggest female tournament in Slovakia EMPIRE Slovak Open, which is held on clay in May," added Boleman.
The first edition of EMPIRE Women's Indoor 2015 won Latvian player Anastasiya Sevastova, now holds 13th WTA rankings place. A year later, was the best Russian Yekaterina Alexandrova, now No. 72 player in the world. Upcoming year prestige title went to Czech Pernilla Mendes and last year grabbed the trophy Moldavian player Anastasia Detiuc, who switched nationality to represents Czech Republic since February 2018.
