The Internazionali BNL d'Italia is an annual clay-court tennis tournament which is held in Rome, Italy. The tournament is an ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event for men whereas it is a Premier 5 event on the WTA Tour for women’s competition. The tournament features the best players for the second of the three Masters 1000 event contested on clay. The event is not just about great tennis, but it is a total entertainment experience with great food, high fashion, fabulous shopping destinations and musical performances by celebrities. All this have contributed towards making this one of the most glamorous events on the calendar.

Earlier, the event was known as Italian Open but from 2002 it changed to its current name. The tournament was also known as Italian tennis championship when it was held for the first time in 1930 in Milan. The tournament moved to Foro Italico in Rome in 1935, which is also its present venue.

Tournament Facts –

Venue – Foro Italico
Surface – Clay / Outdoors
Men’s Singles – 56 players
Women’s Singles – 56 players
Men’s Doubles – 24 pairs
Women’s Doubles – 28 pairs
Courts – The center court has a capacity of 8,000 spectators.
Winner of most Men’s Singles titles – Rafael Nadal – 4 titles.
Winner of most Women’s Singles titles – Chris Evert – 5 titles.
Tournament – 25th April to 2nd May 2010.
Next Tournament - May 9, 2011
Past Winners – Rafael Nadal

The BNP Paribas Open is an annual hard-court tennis tournament which is held in Indian Wells, California. Many people consider it as “The Grand Slam of the West”, and this event is the fifth most-attended tournament next to Grand Slams. The event is first of the nine ATP World Tour Masters 1000 events and showcases the best men’s and women’s players. This is a Premier Mandatory event on the Women’s tour.

Held annually at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, it is a state of art stadium which boasts of 16,000 seats and is the fourth largest stadium in the world. It is one of the world’s most beautiful venu es for watching the competition of world’s top professionals. This can be demonstrated from the fact that in 2009, the event saw a crowd of 332,498 people in a 12 day tournament. This was a record turnout as in 2007; the tournament had an attendance of 300,000 making it the best attended tennis tournament outside the four Grand Slams. The tournament was called by different names throughout; when it began in 1974 it was called as American Airlines Tennis Games.

Tournament Facts –

Venue – Indian Wells Tennis Garden
Surface – Hard / Outdoors
Official Ball – Penn
Men’s Singles – 96 players
Women’s Singles – 96 players
Men’s Doubles – 32 pairs
Women’s Doubles – 32 pairs
Courts – There are 20 tennis courts at the venue.
Winner of most Men’s Singles titles - Jimmy Connors, Michael Chang, and Roger Federer – 3 titles each.
Winner of most Women’s Singles titles – Martina Navratilova, Steffi Graf, Mary Joe Fernández, Lindsay Davenport, Daniela Hantuchova and Kim Clijsters – 2 titles each.
Next Tournament - March 7, 2011
Past Winners – Ivan Ljubičić

The BNP Paribas Masters is an annual hard-court tennis tournament which is held in Paris, France. The event is played indoors at Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy. This is the ninth and the last of the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 events. Many people consider this tournament as the world’s most prestigious indoor tennis tournament. As this is the final tournament of the regular men’s tennis season, there is a race among players to win the prestigious title and clinch one of the remaining spots in the ATP World Tour Finals.

The event was previously known as the Paris Open or also the Paris Indoor event. Due to the sponsorship, the event is officially known as BNP Paribas Masters. The event boasts of top tennis players in the world competing for a share of considerable prize money.

Tournament Facts –

Venue – Palais Omnisports de Paris-Bercy
Surface – Hard / Indoors
Official Ball – Penn
Men’s Singles – 48 players, with 39 main entries based on ATP rankings, 6 qualifiers and 3 wild cards
Men’s Doubles – 16 pairs, with 10 pairs based on their doubles rankings, 4 pairs are admitted directly according to the singles rankings of at least one of the players and 2 wild card teams.
Courts – The center court has a capacity of 12,300 people.
Winner of most Men’s Singles titles –Boris Becker and Marat Safin – 3 titles.
Tournament – 7th to 14th November 2010.
Next Tournament - November, 2011
Past Winners – Robin Söderling