India’s most prestigious Tennis tournament was inaugurated in 1996 in New Delhi as the McDowell Open. The tournament was subsequently moved to Chennai the next year, a city that was home to the same for the next two decades, under a variety of banners, namely Gold Flake Open (1997-2001), Tata Open (2002-2004), The Chennai Open (2005-2009) and Aircel Chennai Open (2010-2017). In 2018, the tournament moved its base to Pune, where the inaugural edition of Tata Open Maharashtra was held.
The tournament falls under the bracket of the ATP 250 event and is one of its kind in South Asia. The Men’s Singles event has 28 players, including 3 wild cards and 4 qualifiers and the Men’s Doubles event features 16 pairs. A week-long tournament witnesses high-octane Tennis on the Hard Courts of the Mhalunge Balewadi Tennis Stadium in Pune.
Over the past two decades of the tournament, we have seen a variety of world-class players grace the event. Pat Rafter, Boris Becker, Guillermo Canas, Carlos Moya, Paradon Srichapan, Rafael Nadal, Mikhail Youzhny, Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Richard Krajicek, Marin Cilic and Stan Wawrinka to name a few. Apart from that, the tournament has been a regular fixture for Indian stalwarts such as Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi, Rohan Bopanna, and more recently Divij Sharan, Prajnesh Gunneswaran and Purav Raja.
The first edition of Tata Open Maharashtra was a massive success with Gilles Simon taking the Singles title while the Dutch duo of Matwe Middelkoop & Robin Hasse won the Doubles title. The 2019 edition saw the top-seeded Kevin Anderson edge past his Croatian opponent Ivo Karlovic in the tallest-ever ATP Tour Final in the open era to lift the trophy. The Indian duo of Rohan Bopanna & Divij Sharan clinched the Doubles title.
The third edition of Tata Open Maharashtra marked the 25th year of the ATP Tour event in India. The unseeded Czech Jiri Vesely defied all the odds and claimed the Singles title, while the duo of Andre Goransson & Christopher Rungkat won the Doubles title. India's legendary Doubles player Leander Paes' last appearance in the ATP 250 event on home soil became the highlight of the tournament.
The 2022 edition of Tata Open Maharashtra took place in Pune after a gap in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Regarded as the best Portuguese player of all time, Joao Sousa proved his mettle as he clinched his first singles title since 2018, beating Finnish youngster Emil Ruusuvuori 7-6 (11-9), 4-6, 6-1 in a hard-fought summit clash. Star Indian pair of Rohan Bopanna and Ramkumar Ramanathan produced a scintillating display to clinch the doubles title with a stunning victory in the final to claim their second ATP Tour title together.
For the fifth edition of the tournament, the Tata Open Maharashtra returned to its original slot on the calendar. The qualifiers commenced on New Year’s Eve, while the new year was welcomed by some exhilarating performances in the Main Draw that took place in the first week of January. The unseeded pair of Tallon Griekspoor and Benjamin Bonzi faced each other in the summit clash. It was the first ATP Tour final for both players as Griekspoor went on to clinch his first title. In the doubles, Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and Sriram Balaji entered the tournament as alternates and made it all the way to the final before their dream run was halted by the Belgian pair of Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen. The fourth-seed pair beat the duo of Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury in the semi-finals.
With each passing year, Tata Open Maharashtra is scaling new heights and has become a platform for emerging Tennis stars to showcase their caliber to the world.
