Organisers and partners highly satisfied
End of an era - from 2025 the BMW Open will be a 500cc tournament
Even before the finals, the organisers and partners were highly satisfied with the BMW Open. Despite the bad weather, the tournament was sold out on all nine days - even before the BMW Open began: "That's anything but an everyday occurrence," said a delighted Christian Okon, Managing Director of the organising agency MMP, "over 47,000 visitors came to the MTTC Iphitos facility and it was great to see that the centre court was always full despite the bad weather." Okon also thanked the partners: "The special thing about our tournament is that the partnerships are really lived, we all work together in a spirit of trust and this is the only way we can constantly develop the BMW Open."
Christian Ach, Head of BMW Germany, announced that the tournament will continue to be organised by BMW in the future: "The tournament has been called the BMW Open for 37 years, since 1987, and will remain so in the future." BMW is thus extending its long-term title partnership with the ATP event and will lead the tournament into the 500s era together with MTTC Iphitos and organiser MMP. For Fabian Tross, Chairman of MTTC Iphitos, BMW's commitment was perhaps even the "highlight of the week": "It's absolutely fantastic to go into the future together with BMW and to work on the BMW Open as a 500 tournament. Nevertheless, our tournament should of course remain what it has been for years. We are getting bigger, but we want to remain familiar and down-to-earth."
Tournament Director Patrik Kühnen was already ahead of his time: "In sporting terms, the BMW Open has been at 500 level for several years now," he said, "we've seen some great matches again this year and having Taylor Fritz and Jan-Lennard Struff in the final is an absolute highlight." As were the matches of the Allianz Para Trophy, which was played as an ITF Grade 1 tournament for the first time this year. And last but not least, Kühnen was even able to take something positive out of the bad weather. With a twinkle in his eye, he said: "We'll take any record."
