History
The first tournament was held in 2001 as Qatar Total FinaElf Open for the prize money of $170,000, as a Tier III tournament. In 2004, the tournament got Tier II category because of an increase in prize money to $600,000, and in 2007 to $1,340,000. For the 2008 season, which was the last season it was held, the tournament became Tier I, for the prize money of $2,500,000. The tournament then took a two year break due to the venue hosting the WTA Tour Championship thus not being played in 2009 or 2010. The tournament returned in 2011 as a Premier Event with the prize money of $721,000 and a 32-competitor singles draw (16-pair doubles draw). In 2012, The tournament got Premier 5 status due to the success of last year's tournament that featured seven of the top ten players and also due to the recent history of the Dubai Tennis Championships.
Read more about this topic: Qatar Ladies Open
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The history of a soldier’s wound beguiles the pain of it.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)