Tsitsipas told CLAY<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cThere\u2019s that passion in South America that I sometimes set aside, but when the financial gap is large, you really have no choice but to go with what backs your career. I would love to play there. It\u2019s always been my dream to visit South America and I\u2019ve heard wonderful things about it,\u201d\u00a0he added.<\/p>\n
This week, 13 out of the current top 20 men\u2019s players are playing an event. Seven of those played in Dubai, five in Acapulco and one in Santiago. Dubai and Acapulco are both ATP 500 events, which means they award the same number of points. However, Dubai offers nearly $200,000 more in prize money to the champion ($619,160 compared to $461,835).<\/p>\n
The ATP has promised to protect the South American swing, which has a historic place in the calendar. However, the region will come under pressure in the future when Saudi Arabia\u2019s Masters 1000 tournament starts, likely in the same month. That event is expected to be non-mandatory for players, but the extravagant money on offer could persuade players to prioritise Saudi Arabia over other tournaments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Given South America\u2019s strong history in the sport, some players argue that the region deserves to host a big event. Among those making such calls is former Wimbledon finalist Matteo Berrettini, who has played in Santiago, Rio and Buenos Aires this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPersonally, I think South America deserves to have a top-level tournament on the tour. People here are passionate about the sport, and there are top players as well. The stadiums in Buenos Aires and Rio were packed, and I know Santiago can offer the same,\u201d\u00a0Berrettini said during an interview with Chilean newspaper\u00a0El Mercurio.<\/p>\n
The ATP are expected to confirm the date of the Saudi Arabian tournament and how it will fit in with South America later this year. Its first edition will be in 2028.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stefanos Tsitsipas admits the reason why he doesn\u2019t play events in South America is due to the lack…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[101,118,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-447806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}