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A Smashing Time Again in Mason

The Cincinnati Open continued its ascent in Beemok Capital’s second year of ownership.

by Bill Thompson

When Coco Gauff and Novak Djokovic raised their championship trophies at the 2023 Western & Southern Open tennis tournament at the Lindner Family Tennis Center, nobody in the stands, on the court, or in the administration offices knew if the Mason-based event would return this year.

Beemok Capital, owned by Ben Navarro and based in Charleston, South Carolina, , bought the rights to the tournament in 2022, and it was reported that Charlotte would likely be its new home. But six weeks after the final matches, a video featuring Djokovic and Gauff delivered the decision: The Cincinnati Open, the original name of the event that traces its roots to the Avondale Athletic Club in 1899, would stay in Warren County for another 25 years, while more than $260 million in improvements (roughly split between Beemok and money raised in Ohio) would overhaul the facility.

The payoff was immediate. This year’s tournament drew more than 205,000 fans, a record for the single-week event, that crowned winners Aryna Sabalenka and Jannik Sinner (pictured above) in its 125th anniversary celebration. Thirteen of the week’s 16 sessions sold out, with Opening Day hosting 14,852 people, a single-session record. Next year’s competition will expand to two weeks (August 5-18, 2025) with the number of players in the men’s and women’s draws increasing from 56 to 96.

Beemok didn’t wait to make some of the planned changes. All of the nearly 12,000 Center Court seats were replaced before the 2024 matches. The day before competition began, organizers inaugurated Community Day that featured Grand Slam champions Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf. That event drew 7,000 and raised $200,000 for charities.

Coming improvements include a 2,000-seat sunken stadium that will become the fourth largest of the Lindner Center’s five stadium courts. A 56,000-square-foot players’ facility and another building that will house golf operations for the Grizzly Course are scheduled to be finished by the end of 2024 so the interior work can be wrapped up by next August—as will a tennis pro shop and six tennis, six pickleball, and two padel (platform-like tennis) courts that will be open to the public.

Cindy Starr covered tennis for The Enquirer before moving to USA Today, where she covered Wimbledon, the U.S. Open, Davis Cup finals, and other tournaments for years. When she began writing about the hometown event, it was played on courts at Coney Island. Attending this year’s tournament as a fan, she’s a true believer in its potential.

“The Cincinnati Open is not the U.S. Open, but it’s almost the U.S. Open,” she says. “If you blindfolded a group of people, flew them to Cincinnati from out of town and told them they were at the U.S. Open, they would probably believe you.”

And more than likely thank you for bringing them to Mason, Ohio. In fact, for the second year in a row, both the men’s and women’s winners in Cincinnati went on to take titles at the U.S. Open.

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