USTA open to possibility of Miami tournament moving to new Orlando center

NEW YORK — Could the troubled Miami Open, which for years has been unable to expand or build at its current site due to county restrictions, be moving to Orlando?

Thursday evening USTA officials presented its brand-new, still-under-construction USTA National Campus to the media, and said it was open to the dual-gender professional event landing there should it need to in the future.

“I think it’s in the realm of possibility,” said Kurt Kamperman, chief executive for community tennis. “If the owners of the Key Biscayne tournament wanted to move –  needed to move – we know that they are land-locked and they’ve had real challenges in expanding that. If they wanted to move and they wanted to keep that event in the States, and we would sure hope they would want to keep that event in the States, moving up the street to Orlando would be a great opportunity.”

A Miami Open spokesman did not respond immediately to an email regarding the tournament's future.

In April, the Miami Herald reported that a last-ditch effort for the tournament to forego legal red tape preventing it from expanding or building new structures on its grounds was denied.

“At some point it’s going to be gone,” tournament lawyer Eugene Stearns said in December of the tournament leaving Miami.

The USTA announced its plans for the 64-acre, 100-court facility in Lake Nona, southeast of Orlando, in April 2015. The facility, under construction, will open in January of 2017 and is the new home of the player development program, community tennis and the pro circuit division.

“We want to raise the standards,” said Kamperman of the facility.

The Miami Open, formerly known as the Lipton Championships, is a Masters 1000 ATP event and a Premier Mandatory on the WTA, the largest-scale combined event below the Grand Slam level. The tournament has been frozen in its ability to modernize because of ongoing legal battles as events like that in Indian Wells, Calif., and Cincinnati – of similar size – have grown in stature and attracted more fans.

“They’ve been looking at options and opportunities in wondering where they could go,” said Katrina Adams, the USTA’s president, chairman and CEO. “But we are in no discussions with them.”

Asked if the USTA was interested in the tournament moving to Orlando, Adams responded: “Of course. We want to keep that tournament in the U.S. If our facility and location is viable for them, then that is something that would be discussed down the road.”

The Lake Nona campus lacks a large-scale stadium, however, with two 500-seat show courts – one hard and one clay – planned for the center of the site that can be expanded to 1,500 seats.

Kamperman said there is space for a larger venue, however.

The 64-acre facility is 50 percent bigger than the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, the home of the U.S. Open. While the campus will serve as the base for player development, the program which helps foster top-level juniors and traveling pros, the USTA will maintain its training sites in Carson, Calif., and the NTC in New York.

The Boca Raton, Fla., player development program, however, based at Chris Evert’s family academy, will move to Orlando.

Kamperman said 450 tons of European red clay had been shipped to Orlando for the construction of six red clay courts, while eight DecoTurf courts (the surface the U.S. Open is played on) will be built, as well. Six indoor courts are part of the site, as well as 32 green clay courts and 12 courts for the University of Central Florida, a partner in the project.

All courts on the campus are hooked up to live stream capability for events that will be held there.

The USTA hopes that the site will help spur the next great American champions. A U.S. man hasn’t won his first Grand Slam since Andy Roddick did at the U.S. Open in 2003, while Jennifer Capriati is the most recent American female to win a Slam for the first time, at the Australian Open in 2001.

“I believe this site will have a major footprint in how we are working with our youth,” Adams said. “We started eight years ago to build a mentality with our junior players to come through.”

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