Western & Southern Open Tournament Information

About the Cincinnati Masters

One of nine Masters 1000 Series events on the calendar, which offer 1,000 ranking points to the champion and are mandatory for players ranked highly enough to play, the Cincinnati Masters is one of the biggest events of the American hard-court summer.

Following immediately after the Rogers Cup, the Cincinnati Masters is the last tournament that most top players will compete at before the fourth and final Grand Slam of the year. In the past 20 years, players who have won the Cincinnati Masters and the US Open in the same year are: Andy Roddick (2003), Roger Federer (2005 and 2007), Rafael Nadal (2013) and Novak Djokovic (2018).

The Cincinnati Masters has a long history – it was first played in 1899 – and has been known by many names, including the Tri-State Tennis Tournament from 1901-1969. The tournament was mainly played on clay courts until 1979, the year it was moved to its present home of Mason, a suburb of Cincinnati. Its venue, the Lindner Family Tennis Center, features four permanent tennis stadia: The Centre Court, constructed in 1981, seats 11,400 people.

Western & Southern Financial Group became the title sponsor of the event in 2002, but the tournament did not take on its current form until 2011. The women’s tournament was traditionally played separately from the men’s, and did not take place from 1989-2003. In 2004, the tournament was purchased back from the Croatia Open in Bol, with Lindsay Davenport the inaugural champion on its return to Cincinnati. In 2009, it became a Premier-5 and was finally combined with the men’s tournament to create the Western & Southern Open as we know it.

A popular tournament with tennis fans for its relative intimacy and the amount of close-up views with top players afforded by its design, the Cincinnati Masters has played host to the biggest men’s stars in the sport, with Open Era champions including Jimmy Connors, Stan Smith, Ilie Nastase, John McEnroe, Boris Becker and Stefan Edberg. In the 1990s, the trophy became almost the exclusive property of American players, with Michael Chang, Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras combining to win eight titles from 1992-99. In recent years, however, American men have struggled to be as successful: Andy Roddick was the last homegrown champion and won the second of his two titles in Cincinnati in 2006, although James Blake, Mardy Fish and John Isner have all made the final since then. Isner was the most recent American Cincinnati Masters finalist, finishing runner-up to Nadal in 2013.

Roger Federer reigned supreme for a decade at the Cincinnati Masters, winning a record seven titles between 2005 and 2015, although Andy Murray and Nadal also triumphed during that time. Novak Djokovic made five finals before he finally broke through and won the Cincinnati Masters in 2018, defeating Federer 6-4, 6-4 in the final to complete the ‘Career Masters Slam’.

In most recent years, the iron grip of the Big Four on the Masters 1000 Series titles has loosened a little, and the past four editions of the Cincinnati Masters have seen three first-time champions: Marin Cilic (2016), Grigor Dimitrov (2017) and Daniil Medvedev (2019), who went on to reach the final of the US Open a few weeks later.

The 2020 edition of the Cincinnati Masters saw the tournament relocated from Mason, Ohio to Flushing Meadows, New York and taking place the week before the US Open, as the COVID-19 global health crisis ravaged the tennis calendar. It was just the second ATP Tour event to take place after the five-month suspension, and took place behind closed doors – the fifth time since 1899 that the Western & Southern Open will not be played in the Cincinnati area. But this most unusual edition of the tournament featured familiar faces lifting the trophy as both Djokovic and Victoria Azarenka won their second Western & Southern Open titles, defeating Milos Raonic and Naomi Osaka respectively. Azarenka and Osaka went on to face each other in the final of the US Open two weeks later.

The Western & Southern Open returns to Cincinnati in 2021.

ATP Cincinnati Masters Ranking Points

Cincinnati Masters Champions

Here is a complete list of players who have won singles titles at the Cincinnati Masters, also known as the Western & Southern Open, since the Open Era began in 1968.

Cincinnati Masters tennis is live from Mason, Ohio from 16-22 August, with play starting around 11am local/4pm BST. Bookmaker bet365 are offering customers the opportunity to watch a live stream of the matches alongside in-play betting.

Watch and bet on ATP tennis live at bet365 > live streaming > tennis (geo-restrictions apply; funded account required or to have placed a bet in the last 24 hours to qualify)

How to watch & bet on ATP tennis

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3. Select Live Streaming

4. Select ‘Tennis’ from the ‘All Sports’ drop down menu

5. Enjoy a live stream & in-play betting for ATP Cincinnati Masters tennis, live from Cincinnati from 16-22 August 2021

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