Is the Orleans Tennis Open threatened? This is the big concern expressed this Wednesday evening by its director Didier Gérard, during the evening of the partners of this event which this year will be the 17th edition. The Orleans Open, one of the city’s major sporting eventswhich takes place every year in the fall, has already struggled to recover from its edition postponed four times due to Covid 19.
Today he faces a new blow, and size. The metropolis of Orléans informed him last March that he would not have the 104,000 euros planned for the next editions. A big hole in the budget, even though the plan was for the Open to take place at Cometthe city’s future major event and sports facility, in 2023.
Didier Gérard denounces a breach of engagement
100,000 euros less, when a commitment was made, assures Didier Gérard, for the next two years, it is a blow that endangers the budgetary balance of the tournament. And so its future. “The tournament will take place in 2022, that’s for sure, but for 2023, I don’t know. I can’t afford to have deficits, especially with the enormity of the challenge of transferring such a event at Comet. But not using this equipment, even though the Orleans Open is the biggest challenger in the world of ATP tennis, it would be a total aberration”.
The 2022 edition of the tournament will take place from September 26 to October 2, 2022, at the Palais des Sports in Orléans. A place that Didier Gérard plans to keep for its 2023 edition. “Or we will go elsewhere, to a city that would be more interested than Orléans to welcome us” he launched to his partners.