USTA confirms local tennis event likely headed to Atlanta

Indianapolis Tennis Championships officials announced Friday afternoon that they have sold the sanctioning rights
for the local tournament back to the ATP Tour.

U.S. Tennis Association officials in New York, meanwhile,
confirmed an IBJ report last week that the event is likely headed for Atlanta.

Officials at the USTA, which also owns the U.S. Open, said they already are discussing a deal
with the ATP.

“Atlanta is ready, willing and able to host the event in 2010,”
Tim Curry, spokesman at USTA’s national headquarters in New York, said Friday. “Now that
the ATP has ownership of the event, we’re hoping to get this deal done and have an announcement made by the first
quarter of 2010 at the latest.”

Both the USTA national office and its Southern Section in Georgia
are in on the deal.

Though financial details of the deal were not released, ITC Director Kevin Martin said the
revenue from the sale to the ATP will be enough to pay all the tournament’s outstanding bills with possibly some left
over to use for one of the ITC’s charitable causes.

ITC officials said they negotiated with several potential
buyers for the purchase of the week-long event, but in the end decided to sell it back to ATP so tournament officials could
tie up the event’s finances by year’s end.

Martin cited declines in ticket and sponsorship sales as
reasons for the tournament’s eventual demise. He said while the core audience of the event remained strong, corporate
entertaining at the event waned, severely hurting the tournament.

Martin said the ATP has not yet decided where
the tournament—which is set for the third week in July—will be held in 2010. ATP officials could not be reached
for comment.

The ITC traces its roots in Indianapolis back to 1920, when it was held at the Woodstock Country Club.