19.08.2008
Tennis
Qatar is becoming an important venue on the world tennis stage.
Doha hosts both an ATP and WTA tour event every year. It was also selected by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) to host its prestigious end-of-season championships between 2008 and 2010.
Every January since 1993, Doha has played host to the ATP Qatar Open in which many of the world's top tennis players compete at the Khalifa International Tennis Complex.
The inaugural tournament was won by multi-Grand Slam winner Boris Becker - and the roll of honour now includes many of tennis's greats, such as Stephen Edberg, Jim Courier and the current world number one Roger Federer.
In 2007, competitors included Rafael Nadal, Goran Ivanisevic, Tim Henman, Tommy Hass, Marcos Baghdatis, Marat Safin, Yevgeny Kafelnikov, and Younes El Aynaoui. In a tight match, Croat Ivan Ljubicic defeated Britain's Andy Murray in the final.
With the importance given to women's sport in Qatar, in 2001 the Qatar Tennis Federation took a significant step forward by organizing the first women's tennis championship to be held in the Middle East.
Since then, the Qatar Total Open has attracted most of the greatest women players from the WTA tour, including the 2001 winner Martina Hingis, Mary Pierce, Arantxa Sanchez Vicario, Amelie Maresmo and the 2002 and 2004 winners Monica Selles and Maria Sharapova. The 2007 Qatar Total Open was won by Justine Henin, who beat the then world number five Russia's Svetlana Kuznetsova.
Between 1998 and 2001, Qataris were also fortunate enough to watch the likes of John McKenroe, Bjorn Borg, Pat Cash, Henri Leconte, Yannick Noah, Mats Wilander, Andres Gomez, Mansour Bahrami, among others, play in the ATP Senior Tour of champions.
Outside Doha, Qatar also has tennis centres in Umm Said, AlKhor and Dukhan City, all of which host matches as part of Qatar's league and cup competitions.