To Become a World-Class Tournament, the Dallas Open Had to Leave Big D

The Dallas Cowboys have not called Dallas home for over half a century. The University of Texas at Dallas is in Richardson. The Dallas Wings have only existed in Arlington thus far, though that may or may not change soon. Even the Dallas Stars, who play their NHL games in Dallas, have their headquarters well north of town in Frisco.   

Given all that, it’s really not a big deal that the Nexo Dallas Open, the biggest, most prestigious professional tennis event North Texas has hosted in decades, also calls Frisco home now. But it hasn’t always been this way. For three years, from 2022-2024, the tournament was held inside SMU’s Styslinger/Altec Tennis Complex, where it packed out its tiny capacity each year. That’s when the Dallas Open was an ATP 250 event, the lowest tier of pro tournament on the Association of Tennis Professionals tour. 

For its 2025 edition, the event joined the ATP 500 ranks, making it one of only two American pro tournaments to hold that designation. That’s a really big deal, by the way. It’s understandable if this all sounds a bit too “inside baseball” to many readers. The North Texas sports scene is dominated by the Cowboys, Stars, Dallas Mavericks and Texas Rangers. Even the soccer team in Frisco, FC Dallas, has to fight for what little local attention it receives.  

So, for the locals who may not be tennis aficionados, the Dallas Open making the jump from a 250 event to the 500 level means a lot more prize money, a lot more world rankings points and a lot more prestige, all of which means the tournament attracts bigger-name players, which brings many more spectators. 

During its SMU years, marquee athletes from the U.S. and beyond could easily skip the Dallas Open without missing out on much money, rankings points or publicity, for that matter. That’s certainly not the case in its current form as a 500-level event, as even the top-ranked players, such as Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner, are also required to compete in a certain number of such events each year. 

There are 29 ATP 250 events in 2026, and only 16 ATP 500 events, so it’s little surprise that the Nexo Dallas Open that begins play today has a stacked field of not only all of the top-ranked American men, but a collection of European names that even many casual sports fans will recognize. 

“The biggest thing we needed was a venue that could do all of the things we needed, that was number one for sure,” he says. “Look, Dallas proper has been fantastic for us. They welcomed us with open arms and the mayor came out to do a coin toss, so we love Dallas proper, but we didn’t have a venue there this time to do what we needed [to become an ATP 500 event]. 

The obvious fact is that the Dallas city limits do not have a facility that can compete with The Star in Frisco for hosting this type of pro tennis tournament. An ATP 500 event requires a unique arrangement, after all. Old and small Moody Coliseum and Fair Park Coliseum certainly don’t cut the mustard for a tournament of this level, and the American Airlines Center is too large and has an incredibly packed schedule this time of year, as both the Mavs and Stars are in-season. A top-notch indoor stadium that can be converted to suit a tournament’s multi-court needs, while still offering more than 6,000 seats with a high-end hotel for the players literally attached to it, along with the cache of the Dallas Cowboys name hovering over all of it, does not exist south of LBJ Freeway, plain and simple. 

Last year, Dallas City Council member Cara Mendelsohn wrote on social media, “Dallas Open Tennis Tournament should be played in Dallas, not Frisco. Also, looks like attendance is very poor,” above a photo from a court with only a few seats filled. 

Mendelsohn, who does not regularly post tennis-related opinions on her X account, shared that image on a day when many lesser-known and unranked players were playing qualifying matches prior to the main tournament, meaning it wasn’t a day when many people would be attending to benign with. In fact, the picture she posted of women playing on the Star’s Ford Center court was another dead giveaway that it wasn’t an true representation of tournament attendance, as the Dallas Open does not host sanctioned women’s matches.   

A reported 62,000 people attended the tournament’s inaugural Frisco-based event over nine days. Canadian Denis Shapovalov, who has been ranked as high as No. 10 in the world, defeated Norwegian Casper Ruud, a Grand Slam finalist who has reached No. 2 globally, in the 2025 final. Top-ranked Americans, including Taylor Fritz, Tommy Paul, Ben Shelton and Frances Tiafoe, each appeared as well, adding to the star power. Many of those same talents will be back in Frisco this week, save for Ruud, who just announced he would miss the tournament to stay home with his newborn daughter. 

Even though the Nexo Dallas Open is now in a larger, more glamorous venue in a different city, with more prize money, brighter star power and greater cache, Lebedevs says it’ll never forget where it all started, and its connection to Dallas isn’t ending anytime soon. A doubles team from SMU was among a few college teams picked to have a shot at qualifying for the main draw, for example. On Feb. 14, the tournament and its corporate partners will also unveil resurfaced tennis courts at Heidi B. Moore Park in West Dallas, with similar projects planned for the future. 

“We love Dallas for what they did for us,” he says. “We wouldn’t be here without that support, and that’s why we will continue giving back to Dallas and to the tennis community there and to those young kids that will be playing on those courts.”