The Erste Bank Open has been an integral part of the local sports calendar for years. National and international tennis stars have been playing big for 50 years now. In its long history, only three Austrians have won the tournament.
VIENNA. Andy Murray, Roger Federer, Thomas Muster, Novak Djokovic – the list of world-class tennis players who have already played in the Wiener Stadthalle is long. At this year’s 50th edition of the traditional tennis tournament in the Vienna Stadthalle from October 19th to 27th, other aces of the sport will be taking part: Alexander Zverev and Taylor Fritz.
We can look back on a long history: the tournament was held for the first time in 1974 and has been held every October in the Vienna Stadthalle since then. The tournament is special, among other things, because it is only one of two ATP tournaments in the country, along with the one in Kitzbühel.
Tournament in top category
The Erste Bank Open is now part of the ATP Tour 500 tournament category. But that wasn’t always the case: you started at the bottom: the tournament initially belonged to the Grand Prix Tennis Circuit, but from 1990 to 1995 it was part of the lowest category within the then newly founded ATP tour. It then belonged to the ATP Championship Series, later to the ATP International Series Gold, which was renamed the ATP Tour 500 in 2009.
From 2009 to 2015 they suffered a setback as they were downgraded to the inferior ATP-250 category. The Vienna tournament has been part of the ATP 500 category again for nine years now.
Prize money of 2.5 million euros
Not only has the number of well-known names increased, but also the amount of prize money. While this was $25,000 at the tournament premiere, the total prize money has now increased to around 2.5 million euros – winning pays off. By the way, sponsors are responsible for this, and they haven’t always stayed the same over the years.
At the beginning, Fischer was won as the main financier, but over time he was replaced by Creditanstalt. Since 2011 the tournament has been known as the Erste Bank Open. Nothing has changed to this day.
Well-known faces represented in Vienna
A number of local and international stars and young players have already been guests in Vienna. The list of winners includes tennis greats such as Stan Smith (1978, 1979), Andre Agassi (1994), Boris Becker (1996), Roger Federer (2002, 2003), Novak Djokovic (2007), Andy Murray (2014, 2016), Alexander Zverev (2021) or Jannik Sinner (2023).
But some Austrians also had reason to celebrate in front of their home crowd. In 1988, Horst Skoff won the final against compatriot Thomas Muster. Tennis fans had to wait 21 years until the next Austrian victory: it was only in 2009 that Jürgen Melzer triumphed in Vienna and defeated the Croatian Marin Čilić.
A year later it was Melzer who won the Erste Bank Open again. The last Austrian winner was Dominic Thiem. In 2019 he defeated the Argentine Diego Schwartzman in three sets. Incidentally, the Erste Bank Open is the only ATP tournament in Austria that Thomas Muster was never able to win despite appearing in three finals.
This year’s edition of the Erste Bank Open will take place on October 19th. The grand final day is scheduled for Sunday, October 27th.
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