Iga Świątek lifted the Cincinnati Open trophy on a Monday this year. Dylan Buell / Getty Images
The Cincinnati Open will revert to a Sunday final from 2026, having played the 2025 finals on a Monday in its first year as a two-week ATP Masters 1000 and WTA 1000 tournament.
Tournament director Bob Moran got his wish, having said during a recent interview that he did not “love” a Monday final. In a statement, Moran, who is a member of the WTA Tour’s board of directors, said “we feel strongly that a Sunday final will deliver the best tournament experience.
“We appreciate the ATP and WTA Tours working with us to make this change, which will benefit our attendees, partners, players and global broadcast audience.”
The tours moved the Cincinnati finals to Monday as part of their effort to squeeze two new 12-day tournaments inside 23 days. That created a messy summer of tennis that had little resemblance to the tennis calendars of the past. The Canadian Open, which precedes the Cincinnati Open, held its finals on a Thursday, when the Cincinnati Open had already started.
Midweek finals have become one of the most unpopular and signal features of the expanded two-week events, which ATP Tour chairman Andrea Gaudenzi said last week were delivering inarguable results on the bottom line.
The chaos is part of the calendar land grab that tennis has been undergoing in recent years as all the big events try to get longer, with Grand Slams becoming three-week events and the most important tour competitions stretching to the better part of two weeks.
Whether Cincinnati’s move starts a further return to weekend showpieces remains to be seen.
Nov 18, 2025
Connections: Sports Edition
Spot the pattern. Connect the terms
Find the hidden link between sports terms
Play today’s puzzle