The Texas Tennis Open, a WTA tournament in Dallas, has folded. The tournament, which was played the week before the U.S. Open, was won by Italy’s Roberta Vinci in 2012. The WTA says it is looking for other playing options during that week.
In related news, the New Haven Open at Yale, which is also played the week before the U.S. Open, has asked the WTA to allow it to become an International Series (lower tier) tournament in 2013. The USTA, which owns the event, confirmed to TENNIS.com that it would like to see a major decrease in prize money. The tournament is scheduled to pay out $690,000 this year and would like to reduce that to around $235,000.
New Haven officials do not believe that a prize-money reduction will diminish its player field because players are not restricted by normal entry rules in tournaments that are played a week before a Grand Slam event. Therefore, New Haven can pay appearance fees to any players it can recruit—regardless of their ranking—without having to increase its prize money.