Shanghai will become Asia's first city to host the ATP Masters Series from 2009 after signing an agreement with ATP on April 16.

Brad Drewett, the CEO of ATP International, signed the host agreement with Yu Chen, director of the Shanghai Administration of Sports, making China's economic hub a permanent home of the ATP Masters Series tournament.

"Shanghai finally makes its dream come true," Qiu Weichang, deputy director of the Shanghai Administration of Sports, said in the signing ceremony.

Shanghai, which held the Masters Cup in 2002 as well as the last two years running, will retain the season-ending men's event through 2008 before it heads back to Europe.

The Masters Cup is open to the eight best performing players of the year.

Women's tennis governing body the WTA two weeks ago made Beijing a host of one of four elite events with a minimum four million U.S. dollars each in prize money on a revamped 20-tournament top-level calendar.

The upgrade of the China Open as a top-tier tournament is part of a plan to improve and shorten the entire women's tennis tour starting in 2009.

The WTA said the decision to give Beijing one of the elite nine-day tournaments was part of plans to make tennis in China much more popular.

"These two events will become the core of the development of Chinese tennis, which will promote the overall tennis development in China," said Li Youlin, deputy director of the Tennis Administrative Center under the General Administration of Sports of China.

Drewett said that Shanghai's enthusiasm for tennis makes it outstanding among many of the bidding rivals.

"After years of development, Shanghai has possessed good infrastructures, specialists and public supports, which has made tennis part of Shanghai's culture. "

Drewett promised that ATP would bring more excellent tennis player to the city.

Statistics showed that people who play tennis once a week at least in Shanghai have increased from less than 10,000 in 1997 to 545,000.

(Xinhua News Agency April 17, 2007)