History
The tournament was started in 1899 as the Cincinnati Open (it would later be known by several other names, including the Tri-State Tennis Tournament and ATP Championships), and would eventually grow into the tournament now held in Mason. The original tournament was held at the Avondale Athletic Club, which sat on property that is now Xavier University, and would later be moved to several various locations due to changes in tournament management and surfaces. The first tournament in 1899 was played on clay courts (described in a newspaper article of the time as "crushed brick dust"), and the event was mostly played on clay until 1979 when it switched permanently to hardcourts.
In 1903, the tournament was moved to the Cincinnati Tennis Club, where it was primarily held until 1972. In 1974, the tournament was nearly dropped from the tennis calendar but moved at the last moment to the Cincinnati Convention Center, where it was played indoors and, for the first time since 1919, without a women's draw. In 1975, the tournament moved to the Coney Island amusement park on the Ohio River, and the tournament began to gain momentum again.
Between 1978 to 1989 it was a major tournament of the men's Grand Prix Tennis Tour and part of the Grand Prix Championship Series.
In 1979 the tournament moved to Mason where a permanent stadium was built and the surface was changed from Har-Tru clay to hardcourt (DecoTurf II.). Later, two other permanent stadia were constructed, making the Cincinnati Masters the only tennis tournament outside the four Grand Slam events with three stadium courts – Center Court, Grandstand Court and Court 3. A fourth stadium has since been built—Court 4 in 2011—and Court 3 has been renamed Court 9. The women's competition was reinstated in 1988 for one year, and then again in 2004 when the organizers, with the help of the Octagon sports agency, bought a tour tournament previously held in Croatia and moved it to Cincinnati.
In 1975, the tournament reins were taken by Paul M. Flory, current tournament chairman and former executive with the Procter & Gamble Company. During his tenure, the tournament enriched its considerable heritage while donating millions of dollars to charity. Currently, the tournament donates money to Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and The Charles M. Barrett Cancer Center at University Hospital. Flory has been honored with the ATP's Arthur Ashe Humanitarian Award, enshrinement in the USTA/Midwest Hall of Fame and the Cincinnati Tennis Hall of Fame, and has been named one of the Great Living Cincinnatians by the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce. Flory began his involvement as a volunteer with the tournament in the late 1960s and has remained a volunteer, having never accepted a salary. In August, 2008, the men's tournament was sold to the United States Tennis Association, the owners of the US Open.
2002 saw the tournament sponsored for the first time by Western & Southern Financial Group, with the company continuing its sponsorship until at least 2014. In 2011 the men's and women's tournaments were played at the same time making a joint tournament. As a result the name of the competition changed from the Western & Southern Financial Group Masters and Women's Open to the Western & Southern Open.
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