Tournaments

Tournaments are often organized by gender and number of players. Common tournament configurations include men's singles, women's singles, and doubles, where two players play on each side of the net. Tournaments may be arranged for specific age groups, with upper age limits for youth and lower age limits for senior players. Example of this include the Orange Bowl and Les Petits As. There are also tournaments for players with disabilities, such as wheelchair tennis and deaf tennis. In the four Grand Slam tournaments, the singles draws are limited to 128 people for each gender.

Players may also be matched by their skill level. According to how well a person does in sanctioned play, a player is given a rating that is adjusted periodically to maintain competitive matches. For example, the United States Tennis Association administers the National Tennis Rating Program, which rates players between 1.0 and 7.0 in 1/2 point increments. Average club players under this system would rate 3.0-4.5 while world class players would be 7.0 on this scale.

Grand Slam tournaments

The four Grand Slam tournaments are considered to be the most prestigious tennis tournaments in the world. They are held annually and include, in chronological order, the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open. Apart from the Olympic Games, Davis Cup, Fed Cup, and Hopman Cup, they are the only tournaments regulated by the International Tennis Federation The ITF's national associations, Tennis Australia (Australian Open), the French Tennis Federation (French Open), the United States Tennis Association (US Open), and the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club and Lawn Tennis Association (Wimbledon), are delegated the responsibility to organize these events.

Aside from the historical significance of these events, they also carry larger prize funds than any other tour event and are worth double the number of ranking points to the champion than in the next echelon of tournaments, the Masters 1000 (men) and Premier events (women).Another distinguishing feature is the number of players in the singles draw, 128, more than any other professional tennis tournament. This draw is composed of 32 seeded players, other players ranked in the world's top 100, qualifiers, and players who receive invitations through wild cards. Grand Slam men's tournaments have best-of-five set matches throughout. Grand Slam tournaments are among the small number of events that last two weeks, the others being the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California and the Sony Ericsson Open in Key Biscayne, Florida. Currently, the Grand Slam tournaments are the only tour events that have mixed doubles contests. Grand Slam tournaments are held in conjunction with wheelchair tennis tournaments (with the exception being Wimbledon, where the grass surface prevents this) and junior tennis competitions. Grand Slam tournaments are often seen as the culmination of a particular season, such as the US Open Series. These tournaments also contain their own idiosyncrasies. For example, players at Wimbledon are required to wear predominantly white, a rule that has motivated certain players, such as Andre Agassi, to skip the tournament.Wimbledon also has its own particular methods for disseminating tickets, often leading tennis fans to follow complex procedures to obtain tickets.

Grand Slam

Period	Tournament	Location	Surface
January	Australian Open	Melbourne	Hard (Plexicushion)
May-June	French Open	Paris	Clay
June-July	Wimbledon	London	Grass
August-September	US Open	New York City	Hard (DecoTurf)

Masters 1000

The ATP World Tour Masters 1000 is a group of nine tournaments that form the second-highest echelon in men's tennis. Each event is held annually, and a win at one of these events is currently worth 1000 ranking points. When the Association of Tennis Professionals, led by Hamilton Jordan, began running the men's tour in 1990, the directors designated the top nine tournaments, outside of the Grand Slam events, as "Super Nine" events. These eventually became the Tennis Masters Series. In November at the end of the tennis year, the world's top eight players compete in the ATP World Tour Finals, a tournament with a rotating locale. It is currently held in Shanghai, China, and will move to London in 2009.

On August 31, 2007 the ATP announced that major changes will take place in 2009. The Masters Series will be renamed to the “Masters 1000”, with the addition of the number 1000 referring to the number of ranking points earned by the winner of each tournament. Contrary to earlier plans, the number of tournaments will not be reduced from nine to eight and the Monte Carlo Masters will remain part of the series although, unlike the other events, it will not have a mandatory player commitment. The Hamburg Masters event will be downgraded to a 500 point event. The Madrid Masters will move to May and onto clay courts, and a new tournament in Shanghai will take over Madrid's former indoor October slot. In 2011 six of the nine “1000” level tournaments will be combined ATP and WTA events.

Current Masters 1000 tournaments (2009)

Start Month	Tournament Name	City	Surface	Opening
March	BNP Paribas Open	Indian Wells	Hard	Outdoors
March	Sony Ericsson Open	Miami	Hard	Outdoors
April	Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters	Monte-Carlo	Clay	Outdoors
April	Internazionali BNL d'Italia	Rome	Clay	Outdoors
May	Mutua Madrileña Masters Madrid	Madrid	Clay	Outdoors
August	Rogers Cup	Montreal	Hard	Outdoors
August	Western & Southern Financial Group Masters & Women's Open	Cincinnati	Hard	Outdoors
October	Shanghai Masters 1000 presented by Rolex	Shanghai	Hard	Outdoors
November	BNP Paribas Masters	Paris	Hard	Indoors

1. Actually in the adjacent suburb of Key Biscayne, Florida.
2. Actually in the adjacent French commune of Roquebrune-Cap-Martin.
3. Actually in the suburb of Mason, Ohio.

250 and 500 Series

The International Series for men is split into two categories, both run by the ATP: the 250 Series500 Series. Like the Masters 1000, these events offer various amounts of prize money, and some regular International Series events offer larger prize monies than 500 Series tournaments.Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships offer the largest financial incentive to players, with total prize money of US$1,426,000. and The

Challenger Tour and Futures Tournaments

The Challenger Tour for men is the lowest level of tournament administered by the ATP. It is composed of roughly 160 events and, as a result, features a more diverse range of countries hosting events. The majority of players use the Challenger Series to work their way up the rankings, including World No. 1s Pete Sampras, Marcelo Ríos, Patrick Rafter, and Gustavo Kuerten. Andre Agassi, between winning Grand Slam titles, plummeted to World No. 141 and used Challenger Series events for match experience and to progress back up the rankings.The Challenger Series offers prize funds of between US$25,000 and US$150,000.

Below the Challenger Series are the Futures Tournaments, the main events on the ITF Men's Circuit. These tournaments also contribute towards a player's ATP rankings points. Futures Tournaments offer prize funds of between US$10,000 and US$15,000; however, futures status is granted only to events offering a total of US$30,000, meaning that two or three tournaments are played. Approximately 400 Futures Tournaments are played each year.

Premier events

Premier events for women form the most prestigious level of events on the Women's Tennis Association Tour after the Grand Slam tournaments. These events offer the largest rewards in terms of points and prize money. Within the Premier category are Premier Mandatory, Premier 5, and Premier tournaments. The tiering system in women's tennis was introduced in 1988. At the time of its creation, only two tournaments, the Lipton International Players Championships in FloridaGerman Open in Berlin, comprised the Tier I category. In 2009, four tournaments are Premier Mandatory, five tournaments are Premier 5, and ten tournaments are Premier.