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History

The ABN AMRO Open has been one of biggest and most prestigious sports events in the Netherlands since 1974. The tournament is organized by and held at Rotterdam Ahoy. Every year it attracts many top tennis players. From the first edition, both singles and doubles have been played.

 

A brief review

Since 1974, ABN AMRO has been the sponsor the tournament, which in the beginning was part of the WCT-Series (World Championship of Tennis), the precursor of the ATP World Tour.

 

The first tournament

The first tournament in 1974 had a Dutch winner, Tom Okker, who beat Tom Gorman after an exciting final. After the initial Dutch success, it would last 21 years, until 1995, for a homeplayer to win the tournament. The current tournament director Richard Krajicek was the second player to ensure a Dutch victory. Given the quality of the participating players this can be seen as only logical. Other legendary tournament winners are Arthur Ashe (2x), Dick Stockton, Jimmy Connors (2x), Bjorn Borg, Guillermo Vilas, Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker and Roger Federer. Federer is the record title-holder, with three singles titles.

 

The spectators

Over the years the tournament has grown enormously. By comparison, in 1974, 46,000 people attended the tournament, and in 2024, a record number of 126.963 people attended the tournament. There also is a grow in the tournament prize money. In the 70´s Arthur Ashe settled for an amount of $ 12,000, now the winner receives € 399.215.

 

The media

In the first year the tournament was only broadcasted by the AVRO. The familiar voice of Willem Duys was for years inextricably linked to the tournament. Later, foreign TV stations started to have an interest in broadcasting the tournament. Today, the ABN AMRO Open is broadcast in 198 countries. This has resulted in the tournament being covered in every corner of the world, in newspapers, sports magazines, online and on TV.

 

You can easily view the winners of previous years via the buttons below: