What was the Scottsdale tournament?
For most of twenty years, Scottsdale was a regular stop on the men’s pro tennis tour. World Championship Tennis started it in October 1986 as the WCT Scottsdale Open, with a 7,500-seat stadium and John McEnroe, who won it for his 70th career title. The next year the Scottsdale Princess opened, and its stadium court became the tournament’s home until the end.
It went by five sponsors’ names: the Eagle Classic, the Purex, the Nuveen, the MassMutual and, longest, the Franklin Templeton Classic. From 1989 it was played in late February or early March, the week before the tour headed to Indian Wells. Ivan Lendl beat Stefan Edberg in the 1989 final. Andre Agassi won it four times, more than anyone. Jim Courier, Mark Philippoussis and Lleyton Hewitt won it too.
The last one was in 2005. That year Tennis Channel bought the event and moved it to Las Vegas, where it lasted three more years. The Princess has since built over its courts.
The champions
| Year | Event | Champion | Runner-up |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1986 | WCT Scottsdale Open | John McEnroe | Kevin Curren |
| 1987 | WCT Scottsdale Open | Brad Gilbert | Eliot Teltscher |
| 1988 | Eagle Classic | Mikael Pernfors | Glenn Layendecker |
| 1989 | Eagle Classic | Ivan Lendl | Stefan Edberg |
| 1992 | Purex Tennis Championships | Stefano Pescosolido | Brad Gilbert |
| 1993 | Purex Tennis Championships | Andre Agassi | Marcos Ondruska |
| 1994 | Nuveen Championships | Andre Agassi | Luiz Mattar |
| 1995 | MassMutual Championships | Jim Courier | Mark Philippoussis |
| 1996 | Franklin Templeton Classic | Wayne Ferreira | Marcelo Ríos |
| 1997 | Franklin Templeton Classic | Mark Philippoussis | Richey Reneberg |
| 1998 | Franklin Templeton Tennis Classic | Andre Agassi | Jason Stoltenberg |
| 1999 | Franklin Templeton Tennis Classic | Jan-Michael Gambill | Lleyton Hewitt |
| 2000 | Franklin Templeton Tennis Classic | Lleyton Hewitt | Tim Henman |
| 2001 | Franklin Templeton Classic | Francisco Clavet | Magnus Norman |
| 2002 | Franklin Templeton Classic | Andre Agassi | Juan Balcells |
| 2003 | Franklin Templeton Classic | Lleyton Hewitt | Mark Philippoussis |
| 2004 | Franklin Templeton Classic | Vince Spadea | Nicolas Kiefer |
| 2005 | Scottsdale (Tennis Channel) | Wayne Arthurs | Mario Ančić |
A few finals
1993. Agassi came in as the reigning Wimbledon champion, ranked eighth, and beat Marcos Ondruska in three sets in “chilly, blustery conditions with light rain,” UPI reported, saving five match points in the deciding set. 1994. He came back for his first tournament after wrist surgery in December, won without dropping a set, and took his 20th tour title. 1998. He entered on a wildcard, unseeded, in the year he climbed back from outside the top 100, and won again. 2005. Wayne Arthurs, a 33-year-old Australian ranked 99th, won his first tour title in the last Scottsdale final, the oldest first-time champion the ATP had seen.
The women’s tournaments
The women’s tour came to Scottsdale in two stretches. The Virginia Slims of Arizona played the Registry Resort in March 1987, when Anne White beat Dianne Balestrat in a rain-delayed final; its other years were in Phoenix. Then the Princess hosted the Arizona Classic in October 1990, won by Conchita Martínez, and 1991, when Sabine Appelmans beat a 15-year-old Chanda Rubin for her first career title. That was its last edition.
The move
In 2005 Tennis Channel bought the men’s event from IMG. Steve Bellamy, who ran it, told the Las Vegas Sun the tournament wasn’t struggling, but the Princess wouldn’t expand to fit his plans: “we don’t want to just do a nice tournament.” It opened in Las Vegas in 2006 as the Tennis Channel Open, and Tennis Channel sold it to the ATP in 2008, which dropped it.
The sources, and the disagreements
Main sources: Wikipedia’s articles on the tournament and on each year’s edition, which cite the ATP’s draw archive; UPI’s 1986 announcement and its reports on the 1993 and 1994 finals; Tennis Majors on Arthurs; the Las Vegas Sun’s 2006 interview with Bellamy; Phoenix New Times for the stadium and ticket prices, read only in an excerpt; and The Meeting Magazines on the Princess expansion.
Where they disagree:
- The 1986 venue. Wikipedia says the Scottsdale Radisson Resort, without a source; UPI’s preview put the stadium beside the “Camelview Resort.” We haven’t settled which hotel that was.
- Prize money. $220,000 or $279,000 in 1986; $275,000 or $300,000 in 1993.
- The stadium’s size. 5,000 seats around 2003 by New Times, 6,300 in a 2011 resort release.
- The tier. Wikipedia’s own pages mix “World Series” and “International Series” for the late 1990s.
- The 2005 name. Listed as the Tennis Channel Open and, officially, the Scottsdale Open.
- The court. That the stadium court itself was torn down, not just the side courts, is inferred from the 2015–16 expansion and the resort’s current amenities.
Unanswered: why there was no men’s event in 1990 and 1991, why the Arizona Classic ended, and the crowds.
Why it matters
The Princess opened in 1987 to make north Scottsdale a resort destination, and pro sport was part of the plan: the Phoenix Open’s TPC next door, and a tennis stadium on the grounds. For two decades the tournament put the city on the late-winter tour calendar with some of the best players in the world, Agassi above all. It left the way many Scottsdale events have, when an owner with bigger plans took it somewhere else.