Google News
For the 13th straight year, Shrewsbury will host an ITF women's event from March 30 - April 5 on an indoor court for $60,000. Back in February this year, the LTA increased this tournament from $25,000 to $60,000 and were pleased with the players field and organization, offering Shrewsbury another opportunity to gather some top-100 stars in what is the strongest women's events in Great Britain outside grass.
The winner will receive a brand-new Citroen Trophy and the managing director of The Shrewsbury Club Dave Courteen is hoping to attract many competitors from the top-100, despite another tournament of this category staged in France in the same week.
To bring as much crowd as possible, the organizers will present family fan zone day on the semi-final action, offering kids a chance to hit with the players. This February, top seeds met in the final, with Vitalia Diatchenko defeating Yanina Wickmayer in three sets to claim the title.
"It's a real achievement to bring this exciting event back to Shrewsbury," Dave Courteen, the managing director of The Shrewsbury Club said. "We have to thank our sponsors for the support, as without their backing, we would not be able to attract tournaments to Shrewsbury.
We are delighted that Citroen are coming on board to support Budgen Motors, who remain event sponsors. The players will be competing for the Citroen Trophy, a new trophy that will be specially commissioned. It's a great credit to the town of Shrewsbury that the LTA can see just how much local people get behind the tournaments that we stage at The Shrewsbury Club.
It's also a great credit to Tennis Shropshire for the amount of work they put in alongside us to make the tournaments as successful as they are, while it's also fantastic for the local companies and businesses that support us.
We are now working closely with the LTA to make sure this is an event that encourages people to play tennis, as well as to watch tennis. We will be working with other tennis clubs around the county and with Tennis Shropshire to promote courses that people can sign up for to begin to play tennis.
We also have many events lined up to run alongside the tennis, including a new family fan zone day, which will be held on the day the tournament's semi-finals are played, which will be a Saturday. It's always difficult to predict just who might enter this time but with this level of the tournament, we would expect to have players currently within the top-100 in the world.
We would also anticipate that the seeds would be players regularly appearing in the main draw of Grand Slam events. The LTA has timed this tournament to suit the schedule of the British players, so we are hopeful several British players will be competing in Shrewsbury as part of their build-up to the Fed Cup."