FAQs on the new grass court season calendar for 2025
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A new grass court calendar has been unveiled for 2025 with the intention of improving the experience for fans and players and offering more fans the opportunity to watch professional tennis.
After our initial announcement, we have answered some of the frequently asked questions in relation to the changes that will be made to each event.
Queen's
The main reason we are bringing the women to Queens is have a higher-profile event earlier in the grass court season, taking advantage of the infrastructure already in place and exposure that being in the capital provides.
The WTA 500 event has grown significantly at Eastbourne and we feel women’s tennis would benefit from a significant uplift for fans in an iconic venue with much larger seating capacity (nearly 4,000 more). It is also impossible to stage two WTA 500’s in the same week, so with Bad Homburg moving into the same week as Eastbourne, this presented us with the opportunity to move our 500 sanction to Queen’s, whilst still retaining a combined men’s and women’s event at Eastbourne the week before Wimbledon - minimising travel for any players based in England.
Many events have historically overlapped such as the Italian Open, whilst Dubai and Doha currently do, so both Tours are well used to this. There are adequate changing, lounge and practice facilities for both genders, and we will be making some changes to the site plan to further enhance the event experience.
The work done by our court maintenance team led by Graham Kimpton at the The Queen’s Club is exemplary as everyone knows, so the impact on the courts will be minimal. It is possible to stage two consecutive weeks of tennis on grass as Wimbledon capably demonstrates.
Independent research, for the AELTC and LTA, undertaken into the quality of the grass during an exclusive WTA week in Birmingham, confirmed that the grass is more than durable enough to continue to offer a high-quality playing surface in the second week.
Eastbourne
Inevitably, a WTA250 level event means under new Tour rules, the number of top-ranked players will be restricted, however Eastbourne has always punched above its weight in terms of popularity amongst the player base. Under WTA rules there are also a number of wild cards available for top players, including former Grand Slam champions, world No.1s or defending champions.
The changes also only impact the women’s event at Eastbourne – the ATP tournament which has been won by top players like Novak Djokovic, Taylor Fritz and Alex De Minaur in recent years – remains unchanged.
Rankings are not the only indicator of player field since there are plenty of marquee players on the women’s side who are currently ranked outside the world’s Top 30, such as former Grand Slam and world No.1 players such as Emma Raducanu, Naomi Osaka, Caroline Wozniacki, Angelique Kerber, Sloane Stephens, Karolina Pliskova, Venus Williams just to name a few.
For example, the Nottingham WTA 250 event field we have just announced included the likes of Jabeur, Boulter, former Grand Slam champions Krejcikova and Kenin, former world No.1 Pliskova and other British WCs to be confirmed.
The LTA remains committed to continuing to invest in Eastbourne for the long term. The same number of players will still be travelling to Eastbourne and playing the event, the same number of matches will be played for fans to enjoy.
Birmingham
This is an opportunity for the first time ever, to bring a joint professional men’s and women’s tennis in Birmingham. This means that all the LTA’s summer grass court events will host both genders.
We have seen how fans in Nottingham have embraced dual-gender events in the same week, and fan attendance there is at an all-time high. The LTA is very grateful to the Edgbaston Priory Club for all the hard work they have put into the WTA event for the past 40 years and we look forward to working in partnership with them (and the AELTC) into growing the event even more there in the future.
Grass court ITF women’s events and ATP challengers typically punch above their weight when it comes to player fields since everyone wants the opportunity to get competitive matches on the grass before Wimbledon in what is quite a short circuit on a unique surface.
In the last three years the men’s event at Surbiton (which Birmingham is replacing) has been won by Andy Murray and Dan Evans. Whilst there will be a drop in the number of Top 100 women competing in Birmingham, we hope that tennis fans appreciate the diversity of seeing a dual gender event which has made Surbiton and Nottingham such a success previously.
Surbiton
The Surbiton event has grown in recent years, but its further growth is restricted by the site and space available. Moving the event to Birmingham allows us to bring the event to more fans and deliver it on a bigger scale.
We would like to thank the Surbiton Racket and Fitness Club and all the staff there for doing such an amazing job delivering the event.
