It's not the WTA's Bank of the West Classic or the ATP's SAP Open, but for tennis enthusiasts in Lamorinda and the East Bay, it's the next closest thing.
The 24th annual Moraga Open Tennis Championships presented by the Alta Bates Summit Medical Center will be taking place Aug. 3-8 at the Moraga Country Club in Moraga. It's the top Open level tournament in Northern California. The "Open" level is one notch from the professional circuit.
The tournament was formerly known as the Stead Open, but Stead Automotive Group withdrew their sponsorship this year according to tournament director Mark Orwig.
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"This is actually the premier Northern California open tournament as far as size draw and quality draw. We get players from all over the world into Moraga," he said.
Players will be battling for a $25,000 purse in five divisions: men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles, women's doubles, or mixed doubles.
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The men's champion will receive $3,500, while the women's winner will earn $1,600. Men's doubles winners will get $2,200, women's doubles $2,200 and mixed doubles $2,000.
"We're a very large tournament…obviously some of these players are looking for prize money," Orwig added. "We offer very good prize money for a Northern California open (tournament). There's no one even close to us in Nor Cal, there are very few tournaments around the nation that are this large that aren't pro events."
The tournament has a total of 142 entrants and notable participants include Walnut Creek native Tyler Browne, the No. 4 seed and assistant coach of U.C. Berkeley's tennis team.
Thursday night Aug. 5 will be featured match night. In addition to having some of the higher profiled matches of the tournament, there will be a barbecue for spectators with tickets at $12 for adults and $10 for kids 11 and under.
All of the events except women's doubles will have their final on Sunday Aug. 8, starting with the women's final at 9 a.m. and the men's final immediately afterward. The women's doubles final will be played Saturday at 1 p.m.
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Entrants from Patch towns -
Moraga: Sean Peterson, Alex Poorta.
Orinda: Troy Akin, Nicholas Ballou, Luke Bohuslav, Nicholas Lopez, and James Scott.
Lafayette: Richard Nolan.
Walnut Creek: Lauren Curry, Nick Bezzubchenko, Chris Romero, Chloe Dobbert, Andrew Diefenbach, Pablo Schurig.
Danville: Karen Kay, Christian Meyer, Lin Silva.
San Rafael: Sophia Bryan-Ajaina, Zach Gilbert.
For a list of complete entrants and the match draws, visit the tournament website.
