The 2021 Champions Series Tour, the North American circuit for champion tennis players over the age of 30, will kick off Friday, February 26 in the first of two back-to-back editions of the SoCal Honda Dealers Helpful Cup at the Sherwood Country Club in Thousand Oaks, California. A total of $120,000 in prize money will be at stake at both events.
The two one-day tournaments will feature the Champions Series debut of Bob Bryan, half of the greatest doubles team of all time alongside twin brother Mike Bryan, who retired from the ATP Tour last year with 16 career major men’s doubles titles as a team. Bryan, the 1998 NCAA singles champion and NCAA “Triple Crown” winner for Stanford, will play in Saturday’s second event and will face off against his former U.S. Davis Cup teammate and captain Mardy Fish in the first one-set semifinal match. James Blake, also a former Davis Cup teammate of Bryan’s, will play 2000 Olympic silver medalist Tommy Haas in the second semifinal. In Friday’s opening event, Blake will play Fish in the first semifinal, followed by Haas facing 2005 U.S. Open semifinalist Robby Ginepri.
New in 2021 is a new prize money structure where the winner of each Champions Series Tennis tournament will earn a first prize of $25,000, while the runner-up will earn $15,000. Losing semifinalists will earn $10,000 each. Additional Champions Series Tennis sites and dates for 2021 will be announced in the near future.
The event is not open to the public and will be limited to sponsors and Sherwood Country Club members, with all attending practicing social distancing and wearing masks. The matches will be televised on Fox Sports Net affiliates and Tennis Channel on tape delay in future weeks. All Champions Series events feature two one-set semifinal matches followed by a one-set championship match.
In 2020, Tommy Haas, the former world No. 2, won the season-long points title for a second straight season, winning four titles – two at the Sherwood Country Club and two titles in Orlando – and finished with a 10-2 series match record.
In 2019, Haas finished with a perfect 10-0 record to win the year-long points championship for the first time. He won titles in Newport Beach, Calif, Maui, Hawaii, New Haven, Connecticut, Los Angeles and Houston to become the first player in the 15-year history of the Champions Series to be an undefeated year-end points champion.
In 2018, Blake won his first Champions Series year-long points championship by winning titles in Winston-Salem, New Haven and Houston, while also finishing as runner-up in Los Angeles and Orlando.
In 2017, the year-long points championship was decided in the final match of the season when Andy Roddick defeated James Blake in the Los Angeles final at the Sherwood Country Club. Roddick, the 2003 U.S. Open champion and world No. 1, won four Champions Series titles in all in 2017, winning in Birmingham, Ala., Chicago, Lincoln, Neb., and Los Angeles. Blake, the former world No. 4 and former U.S. Davis Cup star, won series titles in Charleston, S.C., Winston-Salem, N.C. and in Lynchburg, Va.
In 2016, Mark Philippoussis won the Series points title with 1,600 points and tournament titles in Memphis, Tulsa, Newport, Winston-Salem and New Haven. Roddick finished in second place, also earning 1600 points but losing the head-to-head tiebreaker with Philippoussis 5-2, while winning titles in Charleston, St. Louis, Los Angeles and Orlando.
Champions Series Tennis began in 2005 and over the last 16 years has featured some of the greatest names in men’s tennis, including Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, John McEnroe, Bjorn Borg, Ivan Lendl, Stefan Edberg, Jim Courier, Michael Chang among others. Courier won the first Champions Series Tennis event held in 2005 in Houston at the Westside Tennis Club.
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InsideOut Sports + Entertainment is a Los Angeles based producer of proprietary events and promotions founded in 2004 by former world No. 1 and Hall of Fame tennis player Jim Courier and former SFX and Clear Channel executive Jon Venison. In 2005, InsideOut launched its signature property, the Champions Series, a collection of tournaments featuring the greatest names in tennis over the age of 30. In addition, InsideOut produces many other successful events including “Legendary Night” exhibitions, The World Series of Beach Volleyball and numerous corporate outings. Since inception, InsideOut Sports + Entertainment has raised over $5 million for charity. In 2014, InsideOut Sports + Entertainment merged with Horizon Media, the largest privately held media services agency in the world. For more information, please log on to www.InsideOutSE.com or InvescoSeries.com or follow on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
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