German Open cancelled, says WTA

LONDON (Reuters) - The German Open women's tournament in Berlin has been canceled, the WTA said on Wednesday.

"The tournament won't be on the 2009 calendar but the tournament being scrapped has nothing to do with the global credit crunch," a WTA spokeswoman said.

"The Qatar Tennis Federation, owner of the Berlin tournament membership, has made the decision that they no longer wish to operate the German Open in Berlin and to sell the membership back to the Tour."

The claycourt event usually takes place in May and has been one of the traditional warm-up tournaments for the French Open.

The German Open was bought by the Qatar Tennis Federation (QTF) to boost the image of the country in Europe. During the tournament, programs and exhibitions used to take place to promote sports tourism in Qatar.

Although the deal was supposed to run until 2009, a change in administration at the QTF meant the new management team chose to end the agreement immediately.

"The new committee... feel that all our efforts should be focused on the two tournament we host in Doha," a source close to the QTF administration told Reuters.

"It has nothing to do with the global economic crisis or the falling oil prices."

Following the restructuring of the WTA calendar this year, the tournament had been classed as one of the tour's 'premier' events with a $600,000 prize fund but was pushed back from its usual slot by two weeks.

As a result of Wednesday's announcement, the WTA has to plug a hole in its schedule in the week before the start of the season's second grand slam.

ONGOING NEGOTIATIONS

"Negotiations are on going to see if another tournament will fill in the gap left on the WTA calendar for the week beginning 18 May," the spokeswoman added.

Since most of the top professionals opt not to play competitively in the week leading up to a major, the cancellation may have been prompted by the tournament's difficulty in attracting the big names.

"This is indeed a very sad fact. I have the confirmation by the WTA," Josef Minderjahn, President of the LTTC Rot-Weiss Berlin club hosting the tournament, told German sports news service SID of the tournament's cancellation.

"I am deeply disappointed. You can not go about it like that, without informing your contractual partner," he said. "This is a very strange way. I have asked the Qatari federation for a discussion."

The news would have been a big blow to the German tennis officials as it had been the most high-profile tennis event left on its patch following the ATP's decision to downgrade the Hamburg men's competition from its top tier status this year.

Qatar also holds stakes in other sporting events in Europe as they have ambitions to host major events including the Olympics and the soccer World Cup.

(Additional reporting by Karolos Grohmann in Athens, editing by Padraic Halpin)