Western & Southern Financial Group Masters is also known as Cincinnati Masters. It is an annual outdoor hard-court tennis event which is held in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.  This event began on September 18, 1899 and is the oldest tennis tournament in the United States played in its original city. The tournament was first played at Avondale Athletic Club and since then the event has come a long way and is now a grand-scale ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event.

The men’s event is one of the nine Master’s 1000 tournaments on the ATP World Tour. The women’s event is a Premier 5 event on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour and is the only WTA event held in American Midwest. In 2009 and 2010, men’s and women’s singles events will be played between August 8-23 in 2009 and August 7-22 in 2010. This is a back-to-back two week tournament, which will be held separately for men’s and women’s. But in 2011, the tournament for both will be played simultaneously in eight day’s span.

Tournament facts -

Venue - Lindner Family Tennis Center. This is the only venue outside the Grand Slams which consists of more than two permanent stadiums.
Surface – Hard / Outdoors
Official Ball – Penn
Men’s Singles – 56 players
Women’s Singles – 56 players
Men’s Doubles – 24 pairs
Women’s Doubles – 28 pairs
Courts – Matches are played on 4 to 5 courts.
Winner of most Men’s Singles titles - George Lott, Bobby Riggs, and Mats Wilander – 4 titles each.
Winner of most Women’s Singles titles - Ruth Sanders Cordes and Clara Louise Zinke – 5 titles each.
Men’s tournament – August 14 to 22, 2010.
Women’s tournament – August 7 to 15, 2010.
Next Tournament -August 15, 2011
Past Winners – Kim Clijsters