Should the Golden Swing switch from clay to hard courts? Tournament directors think so

Big changes could be coming to one of the ATP Tour’s most entertaining stretches of the season, as the Golden Swing kicks off next week in Argentina.

A series of historic red-clay tournaments in Latin America, the Golden Swing currently includes stops in Buenos Aires; Santiago, Chile and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Previous years have also featured events in Mexico, Ecuador and other South American cities.

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But could the series’ signature feature, that classic red clay, be what’s holding it back? South American tournament directors say it’s increasingly becoming a hard sell, with the series squeezed in between the hard-court Australian Open and the Sunshine Swing in Indian Wells and Miami.

"I talk to tennis players about the tournament, and the moment I say it's on clay, they close the door. You can't even make them a formal proposal," said Catalina Fillol, the Chile Open tournament director, in an interview with Clay Magazine.

“In the end it gives players one more reason to choose to play on hard courts before Indian Wells. In South America, on clay, it is already much more difficult for us to attract players, because they come from an important hard court swing in Australia and are preparing for another important one in the United States…

“Tennis-wise, it's understandable why they do it. Acapulco (a 500-level tournament in late February) distributes more points, and it's easier for them to play on hard court to prepare for Indian Wells.”

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Fillol says she’s open to a radical solution that would see the Golden Swing make the switch from red clay to hard courts in a bid to attract top talent. In an ideal world, that means the swing could extend to culminate in Acapulco, making it all the more appealing for players looking to tune up for upcoming ATP Masters 1000 tournaments.

Acapulco was originally the fourth stop on the Golden Swing, until the tournament made its own switch from clay to hard courts in 2014 for similar reasons.

“The decision was something that we were looking for a long time ago, maybe five or six years, but the Player Council didn’t feel it was OK,” said Raul Zurutuza, Acapulco’s tournament director until 2022, at the time. “Then two years ago, there was a gap in the calendar… and the pieces clicked. It makes a lot of sense to have Acapulco on a hard court.”

It made a lot of sense to top players too, who have been flocking to the tournament since its surface switch.

Now, other Golden Swing tournament directors say they want the all-clear to make the same change.

According to Fillol, Rio Open tournament director Luiz Carvalho is already on board, with Buenos Aires organizers reportedly the holdouts in pushing to keep their clay-court status. Any change would need to be approved by ATP’s board.

If the search for improvement implies changing to hard courts, well, we change to hard courts. Catalina Fillol, Chile Open tournament director

Carvalho has been lobbying for a surface and venue change since 2016, from the red-clay Jockey Club Brasileiro to the Olympic Tennis Center, which hosted tennis events during the Summer Olympics. The Olympic Park’s center court has a capacity of 10,000, while the tournament’s current facilities can seat 6,200.

"The Olympic Park has an incredible permanent structure. We have every desire in the world to take the event there,” he told Brazilian press in 2018. “But it comes up against the issue of having an event on clay and the Park being a hard court facility.”

The potential move received support from local government, too, with Eduardo Paes, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro from 2009 to 2016, mentioning the tournament during an interview discussing how the city could repurpose vacant Olympic venues.

But without approval from the ATP and support from the rest of the swing, tournaments like the Rio Open and Chile Open will continue to be staged on clay for the foreseeable future.

The Golden Swing was established back in 2001 to link four Latin American tournaments in a series, with the goal of developing players and growing tennis audiences in the region. With South American players historically excelling on red clay, it was the natural choice for the surface. But now, as audiences dwindle and as multi-surface threats like Brazil's Joao Fonseca and Argentina's Tomas Martin Etcheverry emerge from the continent, it could finally be time for a change.

The surface discussion seems to come up every year around the Golden Swing, as tennis fans debate how to save this struggling, but much loved, section of the calendar. For tournament directors like Fillol, the answer is simple.

“Obviously other questions arise… Is South America going to want to change the culture of years of playing on clay? Is that something that will favor us as a region? Is a country like Chile prepared for juniors to be playing on hard courts?” Fillol wondered.

“We must go in search of improving the draw. That is the reality. And if that search for improvement implies changing to hard courts, well, we change to hard courts.”