Tennis.com and Marca report that the WTA plans to change the naming structure of tournaments to align with the ATP. The news is supposed to be made official next week. So far there are no announcements on the WTA website.
At present, there are five types of WTA events: Premier Mandatory, Premier 5, Premier, International and $125K. The ATP’s structure incorporates Masters 1000s, 500, and 250-level events. What will happen now is that the Premier Mandatory and Premier 5 events will be called 1000s, Premiers will shift to 500 events, while Internationals will be renamed to 250 events. $125Ks will also be included as 125-level tournaments.
The sources say that the points given to the champions might not be the same as the event level, unlike the ATP Tour. Under the current system, the WTA awards 1,000 points to the winners of Premier Mandatory tournaments, 900 to those who win Premier 5 titles and 470 points to the champions at Premier-level events.
What about the prize money of Doha, Dubai, Wuhan, Rogers Cup and Rome? Will they increase their prize money or they will decrease the prize money of the ex premier mandatory tournaments?
Melxir, the source says that the points given to the champions might not be the same as the event level, unlike the ATP Tour. We’ll see the exact numbers when the WTA announces the news.
Premier Mandatory tournaments currently award 1000 points (Indian Wells, Miami, Madrid, and Beijing), Premier 5 tournaments (Doha, Rome, Cincinnati, Toronto/Montreal, and Wuhan) currently award 900 points to champions — both these categories will be renamed to 1000s, while Premier tournaments (Dubai etc.) give 470 points and they will shift to the ATP level 500 events.
The only thing WTA needs to change is the prize money to be reduced or play best of 5 sets at slams (with equal prize money as men). Some equality.