AITA opens its doors for UTR tour, players stare at ‘eye-catching’ prize purse

While the women’s tournament will be held from November 7-13 in New Delhi, the men’s event is slated for December in Indore. So far, 12 Indian players have signed up for the women’s event before the October 24 deadline for registration.

Both tournaments carry a healthy $20,000 prize purse, which is the biggest selling point of the US-based UTR, of which Stephen Amritraj—nephew of Indian legend Vijay Amritraj—is the Chief Tennis Officer.

UTR has a universal player rating system across gender and categories (pro, college level, various age groups). It is widely accepted in the US—especially in its collegiate circuit—where UTR also held a bulk of tournaments.

In January 2021, it launched a worldwide UTR Pro Tennis Tour with a three-year commitment of over $20 million for “aspiring pro players ranked 200-2000”. It became especially popular amid the pandemic amongst the lower-ranked pros battling increasing travel hassles and costs. Ramkumar Ramanathan, India’s top-ranked singles player, competed in a UTR event in the US in December 2020, while Pranjala Yadlapalli won a UTR tournament in Melbourne.

In the release announcing its arrival to India, UTR Pro Tennis Tour said it hosted 185 tournaments across the world last year and has added 43 more to the calendar this year including in Argentina, Brazil, Greece, Italy, Japan, Slovakia and UK.

Earlier, AITA had warned players about entering into unsanctioned tournaments in the country, including UTR age-group events. While it is still prohibiting junior tournaments, the federation has opened its door for pro events on a trial basis.

“We have only given our nod for these two tournaments as of now,” Anil Dhupar, AITA’s secretary-general, said. “We want to analyse two things—whether our Indian players are benefitting financially, and whether youngsters are benefitting with UTR points for admission into US universities. Only after we analyse these things will we decide whether it is worth carrying forward or not.”

“Our thinking is that if our Indian players can make some money, then why not?” he added.

The prize money and the format are the two standouts of the UTR tour. The women’s event in New Delhi, for instance, has $20,000 as prize money and a $45 entry fee per player. It will comprise 20 players in the main draw, played in a round-robin format with four groups of five players each. It, therefore, offers a guaranteed number of matches to a player—as opposed to tournaments in the ATP, WTA, ITF tours—and a more even spread of the cash purse.

Matches are best-of-three sets with regular scoring and the tour has a code of conduct for players mirroring the official tours. Although it does not have a formal partnership with the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA)—the body deals with corruption and doping in the sport—all suspensions and penalties imposed by the ITIA on players will extend to UTR Pro Tennis Tour tournaments, according to its code of conduct guidelines.

Among the Indians to have registered for next month’s women’s event so far include 2021 national champion Zeel Desai (India No 8 in the WTA rankings), this year’s finalist Sai Samhitha Chamarthi and Sharmada Balu, winner of 18 ITF titles.

“The eye-catching thing about this is the prize money. It’s quite tempting, to be honest, and they have a guarantee of playing a certain number of matches,” Sharmada, who will compete after recovering from an ankle injury sustained at the National Games, said. “All in all, it’s really good because you don’t have to travel too far, you make a decent amount of money and you get in good matches. So to play this was a no-brainer for me at the moment.”

For the 29-year-old former national junior champion, the attractive aspect about UTR events from a player viewpoint is the greater spread of prize money share, a criticism often directed towards the ATP, WTA and ITF tours.

“If you win an ITF event, for example, you make good money, but if you lose early, you don’t make much. Here, not only is the prize money high but it’s also spread pretty evenly. I hope there are more of these events here,” Sharmada said.