By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
The Delray Beach Open ATP 250 event in Delray Beach, Florida continues to be very fan friendly with its excellent pre-event promotion.
The tournament, run by former University of Georgia All-American Ivan Baron and his family, always make it a point to promote in advance WHEN exactly their top-ranked players are playing! This allows fans, with weeks of notice, to properly plan their week of tennis view so that can for sure see their favorite top players competing in the event.
In an advance press release touting that Frances Tiafoe will among the 2024 field of competitors, the tournament made sure to announce “Tiafoe will play his first match at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 15.” It then also promotes that defending champion Taylor Fritz will begin his title defense at 8 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 14, and that Tommy Paul, another of the leading entries, will play his first match during Thursday’s day session.
In my column in 2020 on the Delray Beach Open, I discussed promoting the advanced start times for the star players and how the tournament really understood “Tennis Promotion 101” as you can read here https://www.worldtennismagazine.com/archives/18290
The 2024 Delray Beach Open will played Feb. 9-18 and tickets are on sale at DelrayBeachOpen.com.
The event starts on Friday, February 9 with what the tournament calls an ATP Champions Tour Legends event, although there really isn’t an ATP Champions Tour anymore and this event is just a series of attractive exhibition singles and doubles matches featuring the Bryan Brothers, the Jensen Brothers, Ivo Karlovic, Sam Querrey among others.
The Delray Beach stop on the global ATP Tour annually plays in front of over 60,000 fans and reaches television audiences in nearly 90 countries. The tournament is the first North American hard court event of the outdoor season, and one of just 10 ATP Tour events in the United States.
