Belgrade will be without the ATP 250 tournament, which it has hosted since 2021, with Novak Djokovic announcing that Ion Cyriak (license holder) wants to move the competition elsewhere.

Bucharest hosted the ATP 250 tournament between 1993 and 2016, before the competition moved to Budapest (2017) and Belgrade (2021).

Ion Cyriak wants to move the ATP tournament from Belgrade

While in Dubai, Nole said the organizers of the tournament (which has been held at his academy in recent years) will have to find a solution because Cyriac does not want to sell the license.

“First of all, I must say that the license is not ours. I rented it from its owner, Ion Cyriac, and now he wants it back. We wanted to buy the license to host the tournament in Serbia for many years to come, because we have been successful: many people in the stands, the ATP gave us excellent marks for all our efforts. But there’s not much we can do when the owner doesn’t want to sell the license, and we have to respect that.

However, the organizers of the tournament do not give up. We are currently considering two different licensing alternatives. Either we apply to the ATP for a new license, which is less likely because there are many tournaments, or we negotiate another license lease. We could even buy this license, but prices have skyrocketed and most tournaments are profitable, so it’s understandable that they don’t want to sell. We have a great desire, so we’ll see” – Novak Djokovic for a sports club.

Know:

• Serbia The Open tournament, which took place in 2009-2012, will be played this year in Banja Luka, at the Novak Tennis Center, which is being reconstructed.

• Over time, Novak Djokovic (2009,2011), Sam Querrey (2010), Andreas Seppi (2012), Matteo Berrettini (2021) and Andriy Rublev (2022) triumphed at the Serbia Open.