2025 Dallas Open Preview with Peter Lebedevs: Venue Upgrade, the Doubles Field, & More

For the 4th year in a row, I bring Peter Lebedevs on the show to preview the Dallas Open.

The 2025 tournament is undergoing remarkable changes as it transitions to an ATP 500-level tournament, bringing in a stronger singles and doubles field. It's also moving to a larger venue at the Dallas Cowboys' practice facility in Frisco, Texas. Fans can expect world-class tennis, great food & drinks, and unique player engagement opportunities throughout the tournament.

We discuss:

• Transitioning from an ATP 250 to a 500-level tournament
• The player lineup featuring Grand Slam champions and rising stars
• Venue change to the Cowboys’ Ford Center with expanded 6,000-seat capacity
• Challenges presented by the Super Bowl overlap
• Active recruitment of players by Peter, a year-round process
• Enhanced fan experiences including a vibrant outdoor fan zone

More from this episode:

• Follow Peter on Twitter | Follow the Dallas Open on Twitter and Instagram
• Buy tickets, volunteer, or find more information about the tournament at DallasOpen.com

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Transcript

Upgraded Dallas Open Tennis Tournament

Speaker 1 1:16

The 2025 Dallas Open kicks off this weekend and it begins on Saturday, february 1st, with the annual Women's Tennis Classic where they have Martina Hingis and Kim Kleisters playing on Saturday night. So if you're in the Dallas or the Texas area and can attend, this is a really, really great event and great tournament overall that's going to be running through next week. In this episode I have the tournament director of the Dallas Open, peter Lebedevs, on, and this is the fourth year in a row that I've had Peter on to kind of preview the tournament. And the reason I do this is one, I know Peter from my childhood, growing up in Memphis, where he ran the Memphis Open, and I was a ball kid for that when I was a younger junior player. But two, this is a tournament that's close to home. I live in Fort Worth, texas, so I go to this tournament every year and this year it's upgraded from a 250 to a 500 tournament, so the lineup is even better. They're going to have bigger names, they're going to have higher ranked players on both the singles and doubles side, and I looked at the doubles lineup and you can hear in my voice when I start talking to Peter in this episode how excited. I am for it. There are multiple Grand Slam champions. There's tons of top American talents in the doubles lineup as well as the singles field. They've got Casper Roode in the singles field, taylor Fritz, tommy Paul, francis Tiafoe, ben Shelton Ben Shelton is also planning on playing doubles as well and then Austin Krychek and Rajiv Ram will be there, as well as Nate Lamons and Jackson Withrow, two All-American doubles teams. So it's going to be really fun to attend and then also really fun to watch. It'll be on Tennis Channel as well as Tennis TV if you want to stream the doubles matches.

Speaker 1 3:12

But in this conversation with Peter we talk about the differences between the past several years, where they've held the tournament at SMU in Dallas, near downtown, and now they're moving up north to Frisco at the Dallas Cowboys practice facility. So it's going to be a bigger stadium, probably a little bit nicer venue, more space. There's a lot of shopping and restaurants in the area, so we talk a little bit about that. You'll learn a little bit about how Peter goes about recruiting players for his tournament. That's right. As a tournament director, you actually have to recruit professional tennis players. We talk about the venue change, what the fans can expect as well as competing with the Super Bowl a little bit, because the finals on Sunday does compete with the Super Bowl every year, which makes it tough to maintain a crowd through the weekend, or at least on Sunday. So we talk about all of that and more.

Speaker 1 4:11

So enjoy this brief conversation with the tournament director of the ATP 500 Dallas Open, peter Lebedevs. Hey everyone, welcome to the show. It is that time of the year for the Dallas Open, so, as always for the first several years, and now upgrading to a 500, we have the tournament director on, peter Lebedevs. Peter, welcome back. Hey, good to see you. Well, mate, so big upgrades this year for the Dallas Open. You just sent me the doubles lineup, and I am freaking pumped for this lineup. It is a massive upgrade from previous years, and that should be expected, it being a 500 tournament, but I mean, this is a really, really great lineup. So the first question I want to start with before we get to that, though, is typically, we do this in either December or early January. Right now, it is January 24th, and your tournament starts in basically less than a week.

Speaker 1 5:16

Yeah, are you the busiest person in tennis right now?

Speaker 2 5:20

Oh, I don't know about that? I'm sure not. But yeah, we're pretty busy. Our crew just started building the venue out on Wednesday and it is going two crews, 12-hour shifts, 24-7, for the next eight days to get this built and finished in time. So there's 100 questions going on. I'm busy with answering questions more than anything else and you know I had a player reach out saying, hey, are these the kind of balls we're using? Because I'm using these in my practice session. You know, and so everything from you know. Do we have the tunnel right under the building to you know what tennis balls we're using with a player? So it's more answering questions right now. But I'm sure the guys in Rotterdam are the same way and Del Rey's not far behind us with their busy schedule either. But it's fun. I mean you get into this business to have these weeks and have this lead up, so it's all good, awesome.

Speaker 1 6:14

So let's go through the lineup and then we'll talk about some of the actual kind of tournament changes, upgrading from a 250 to 500. So the very first line item here is Ben Shelton and Horatio Zabaios, which caught me by surprise. I guess Marcel Grenoyers, his typical partner, might be injured or something, but to see Ben Shelton playing the doubles again is exciting. He played last year and made the semifinals. And then if we go on down the list, we can't go through all these names, but we've got multiple Grand Slam champions. We have two All-American teams this year, jackson Withrow and Nate Lammons, who are both local to the Austin and Dallas areas respectively. Austin Krychek.

Speaker 1 7:00

Former champions yeah, Former champions exactly the uh, austin and dallas areas respectively. Uh, also former champions, yep, former champions exactly. Austin krychek. Uh, lives in the dallas area. Rajiv ram is who he's playing with. Jamie murray will be there. Uh, he is, um, I think, a former finalist there in dallas. Uh, or?

Speaker 2 7:16

maybe jamie played with the new zealand guy, michael I think, and they won it. Nathan Jackson were up 6-1, 4-2 or something, a break, and then all of a sudden, the live Hawkeye went down. Oh, that's right and that 12-minute break changed everything, as we all know. A break in tennis of time, you know, some people might talk about the cinema match the other day at the Australian Open that changes everything. And then those guys came back and won it, yeah.

Speaker 1 7:45

And then we've got Joe Salisbury and Neil Skubski, both Grand Slam champions and more. So this is a really, really stacked lineup. One thing I'm curious about, and I know, upgrading from 250 to 500 helps, and then during the season, as a tournament director, you're having to I shouldn't say having to, but you do keep in touch with the players to sort of recruit, I guess a little bit and try to bring players into your tournament 100% as a brand new tournament.

Speaker 2 8:16

you know they'll see a 500 in Dallas and you know like anything ooh, it's new, is it going to be any good? Do I want to go there Now? A lot of the guys sort of know what we've done with our Dallas and Atlanta 250 events, but this is a big change, so I have to go out and talk to them. I was talking to players probably about this time last year. I started to talk to some of them. We were talking to Casper and getting him lined up at Indian Wells last year. We're talking another couple of players as well, but they have other contracts long-term at some other events.

Speaker 2 8:55

So it does start with us recruiting the players. I mean, the goal is here in Dallas, a very intelligent tennis market is make sure we bring somebody new each year. And you know Kasper Ruud coming in for the singles. He's a new guy. Three-time Grand Slam finalist, made the tour finals. So we've got three guys in the top ten, because we've got Taylor Kasper and Tommy Pauls just in the top ten. So we've got those guys. And then Ben, obviously, with his run at the Aussie Open. He did actually send me an email saying he is coming. So obviously when you get that far in the Australian Open there's a little bit about gosh. Are the bodies going to be worn out? But we got the email today that said you know Ben's planning on still coming, so we're excited about that.

Speaker 1 9:35

Hmm, that's awesome. That's good to hear, um. Are you recruiting the, the doubles players as well? I know the focus has to be singles, since that's where most of the revenue and the the market comes from, but are you recruiting doubles as well? A little bit.

Speaker 2 9:51

You know, I'll be honest, not as much, because, um, it does come down to ticket sales. And also, you know the the challenge of international TV, because our broadcast goes up as a 500, you know prize money goes from 800,000 to 2.6 million. So that's a huge reason why the guys don't want to play here. And then you add on top of that the TV requirements from ATP media. Doubles doesn't get on stadium court very much. So that's another reason where, you know, at the end of the day it is a business for any promoter of these events, so they're not pushing for specific doubles teams.

Speaker 2 10:27

Now we love the fact that Austin Krycek is playing with Rajiv and he trains literally, I think, two miles from where the event's going to be played at, so he is right around the corner. But you know it is unfortunately you've got to recruit the guys that can sell seats and drive the revenue. So the doubles guys are not doing any recruiting on that side and, as you know too, they change partners. So you know who you're recruiting in this time for next year, for 26, they may not be playing together, you know. So you've got all of those things going together.

Speaker 2 11:00

Look, doubles is a critical part of the event and this year as a 500,. The difference is we actually do doubles qualifying, which doesn't happen at any other event except the 500. So we've got four guys are going to play, four teams are going to play off in qualities two rounds, or one round on Saturday and then the final playoff on Sunday. So you know we absolutely increased the play of doubles. We actually have more doubles players and singles players in a sense. So it's important, but we're not going out and recruiting doubles teams.

Speaker 1 11:31

Yeah, yeah, understood. I think that's something that you know with the TV revenue and the ticket sales. When you're talking about things like that, they make sense to me. Now it's something that I'd like to see change over the next 20 years or so.

Speaker 2 11:49

But look, I don't disagree. One of those things that you saw was, I think, a tournament late last year and Novak was playing dubs and you know, the tournament director said I want to get Novak on stadium court but TV said no, we can't because you know we've got XY singles match going on there. So if you can't get Novak on a stadium court, if you have him playing your doubles, that makes it really hard because you know nobody's I shouldn't say nobody but most tournaments don't have a huge secondary court unless you're a thousand level that can handle that many people coming to watch Novak, you know. So it's sort of this which is, which do you want? You want to promote doubles? Then you got to let them on the center court. If you don't want to send them court, then you know it's this, you know, age old challenge.

Speaker 1 12:34

I guess I'll say so for people watching this on YouTube, they'll. My background is the, the previous venue at smu, the um, when it was a 250 level. You've upgraded to the dallas cowboys practice facility that called the star. Talk to us about that the size of the venue, what we can expect as fans, uh, going to the tournament at the new venue yeah, fort center at Center at the Star is where basically the Cowboys do everything all year.

Enhanced Fan Experience at Tennis Tournament

Speaker 2 13:04

The only time they go down to AT&T Stadium is Sundays for the games. What you're going to see is, first of all, it goes from a 2,000-seat stadium to a 6,000-seat stadium, so we triple the size, even though I love that red and blue court in the background. This year, our court because we're partnering with the Cowboys our court will be blue and silver. So in honour of the Cowboys, we're changing our court colour. To do that, we've added some VIP seating, so this year we've got more rows of boxes, which is a standard. Then we have a second row of 120, what we call loge seats and they are thinking like you're sitting at home in your recliner much bigger and fluffier kind of a seat 120 of those. Then we also have what we call sideline club above that. So there's 500 of those seats. So they're looking on stadium, but that area actually has a deck on top of it. So you're three levels up able to look at the grandstand and the center court both times that you want, and all three of those areas have their own F&B lounge that they can go to. And then we have our 40 Love Suite that we're going to have still the same sort of scenario that we had at SMU, but a little bit higher up. And then we've also got the Quarterback Corner that's a part of the Cowboys Club. So we've got five really high-end VIP experiences for fans to choose from.

Speaker 2 14:23

The fun part is or fun part challenge is because it's never been built. I don't have any pictures I have to tell you Will close your eyes and imagine. I promise it's going to be really good, but with all the box holders going to the Choctaw Club, they're going to have a great time going in there. Legends, which provides all the foods for all these lounges and the Cowboys. It's going to be fantastic food that they're going to be doing and preparing. I've seen the menus and they are absolutely fantastic. So you're going to see those aspects. And then, actually, the best part of one of the best parts I'm excited about is the plaza outside Ford Center is it's a sort of a mini football field. We're putting a giant tent, like we've had the last couple of years at SMU, out there and that's our fan zone and that's where we're going to have all of our sponsors activate. We're going to have also DTA is doing a fast serve, so we'll actually find out how fast everybody serves. We'll have a stage there for a quarter for a interview with players every day in an autograph session.

Speaker 2 15:23

On friday of the tournament, which will be the seventh, we'll actually have a couple of the cma artists, because it's 90 days from the country music awards. Two of their artists are going to get up on our music stage and do some things and that's free to the public. So anybody that's in the area can come in there. We'll have have TVs playing their tennis so you'd be able to get a feel of tennis and do those things to anybody that's hanging around there. And then anybody that goes into the stadium they are able to scan in and scan out so you can go in watch tennis for a little while.

Speaker 2 15:53

If you want to come outside and have a shot at serving, after you've been inspired watching some of the big servers, you can come outside, have a shot at serving. After you've been inspired watching some of the big servers, you can come outside, have a shot at the serve and then go back and watch tennis. So there's no, no other events that I know of where you really can go in and out of the event, scanning in and out with your tickets and enjoy that sort of thing, and so we're excited about how that's going to look for the fans and everybody. I took a group through yesterday and as they got to the part of the venue where they could see the tent, the oh wow. You know, when I said there's going to be a tent outside, they're like, yeah, ok, and I see the size of it, they go, oh my gosh, because it's actually longer than the one we had in at SMU originally. So it's a, it's a giant tent, but it's going to be fantastic. It's going to be a place to hang out and do some things.

Speaker 1 16:38

Awesome. Yeah, I'm really excited hearing about that. How many courts are you going to have this year, upgrading to 500?

Speaker 2 17:04

about this is the Omni Hotel. Fantastic hotel is connected to the venue. So when we drop the players off and the players are all being picked up by Alto from the airports, they'll be driven in, dropped off at the Omni. They do not have to go outside for the next nine days if they don't want to, because they go down one elevator at the Omni, walk through the parking lot and they're in the venue. They're in their locker room, they're in their gym. They walk across the parking lot and they're in the venue. They're in their locker room, they're in their gym. They walk across the venue to the players area, because where the dining is is the same dining room area that the cowboy football players are in um every day. So and they come back and they can, if they wanted to, they could stay inside for nine days. Now the star district up there is unbelievable. We've got 17 restaurants in that area. That's a 500 yard walk from the Omni. So that's what I'm talking to the players about and I think they're all like really, and I'm like I promise you you do not have to go outside.

Speaker 2 17:53

Taylor Fritz spoke to Paul Anacone today and he was excited to hear all of those details, like wow, this sounds like it should be like the best situation you have and when you don't have to travel to practice courts or to site, that's basically saving the guys.

Speaker 2 18:10

You know, 90 minutes to two hours a day between gonna pack my bag, I gotta get down there, get to transportation, get to the site, get out each time. You know there and back that that's a. You know, like I say 90 minutes to two hours for a player, they don't have to do that. And I think it's like I say 90 minutes to two hours for a player, they don't have to do that. And I think it's going to be really exciting. We don't know how the players are going to react, but I think it's going to be really positive. John Isner walked down when he was going through with it and John was like wow, they're going to absolutely love this, the way the locker rooms are set up, and that he's like no, this is really good. And John's seen a few locker rooms and courts over the years.

Speaker 1 18:45

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's something I don't talk about on the podcast much, but when I talk with players kind of off air, one of their biggest complaints to me as well, especially doubles players is practice courts. They're either having to go offsite to a totally different facility that's a different surface maybe because they're very specific with that or it just takes a lot of time, like you said, or it's hard to get a practice court. It's definitely a kind of a pain point for a lot of players for sure.

Speaker 2 19:16

Yeah. So Wayne Bryan said that years ago look you, give me a good hotel, good food and practice courts. And he said we're happy. And so I always use that as a bit of a mantra Okay, check, check, check, We've got it covered.

Speaker 1 19:29

Yeah, absolutely. Something that just came to mind was you're talking about the Cowboys facility. Where this is, the Cowboys are not in the playoffs, but if they were to make the Super Bowl one year, what would that look like? I would imagine they'd still be practicing right now if they were preparing for the Super Bowl. Is that something y'all talked about?

Speaker 2 19:53

Oh, look it is. It is a little bit of a bugaboo. We have to build a little faster. You know, when they go to the Super Bowl, of course that week before they're already. You know when they go to the Super Bowl, of course that week before they're already. You know, at that site, wherever they are, it's not quite as bad as it looks, but, look, that is a bit of a concern. But you know, when we talk to the Cowboys, they have a way to figure it out if that opportunity arises for them. And you know, look, we hope they do, and that would be a champagne problem for them and we'd love to see that. But you know, not this year. So maybe next year we'll have that challenge to come on to overcome.

Speaker 1 20:30

Yeah, exactly Okay. Any other updates we should know about, peter, anything else you want to share with the audience before we hop off?

Speaker 2 20:38

You know, I think that's, I think that's really. You know, the big parts to it is is also it is also with the 500, we only have 32 players so we don't have any buys. So our top players are going to be playing day one and two. So our top four seeds at a 250 when they have the buys. That means they don't play till Wednesday or Thursday. With this draw we're going to have the guys playing first couple of days, so you're going to see the stars very early on, which is great. More often fans can see the stars uh, is better for them. The only challenge we have a little bit is davis cuppers this weekend, um, before our event and so during qualities and that. So some of the guys are going to get a little bit later, which will be a challenge because they've with rules, if they're coming from two continents, they've got two days off, sort of thing. So you know again, that's why we can't ever tell you okay, we're going to have X guys are going to be playing on this day. We have to wait for that. But that's a huge bonus for us to see the top players play even more.

Speaker 2 21:36

And then, you know, as we've always done, we've kept our commitment to SMU and developing college tennis from GF Sports and I'm saying, with Gary Furman, I've always wanted to do that. So Travis Fajr is getting a wild card into the main draw, which is great for him, obviously, and the SMU team. And I look at that and you look at that doubles field right there you see Joe Salisbury. Well, joe played at University of Memphis and you know I gave Joe and Dave O'Hare a wild card years ago into the event in Memphis and they played the Bryans first round and there was a like a five and four match and um, when I saw Dave a few years later, he's like look, we played that match and after playing that match and seeing how close you were, that's what gave them the belief that they could do it.

Speaker 2 22:20

And then you know, as you've seen Joe partnering with Rajiv and you know, winning sl, winning slams, and you know number one in the world and that sort of stuff, that opportunity that Trevor's getting, you know that's what Joe got started on and he became number one in the world. So you never know what can happen from him. And you know I'm finally Joe's coming back to the event. I've always talked about recruiting. I have been recruiting Joe for a few years. I'm like, joe, come on now. We sort of got you started here and that sort of stuff, but now that we're at 500, joe's coming back home, so it's good, awesome.

Speaker 1 22:49

It'll be fun to watch. Peter, do you need any drivers? I always like to ask that, it seems like tournaments always need more drivers.

Speaker 2 23:00

You know, because of our partnership with Alto, we're not actually so bad because the players don't need to get picked up from the airport. That's taken care of. So you know that's one thing that this year we've had trouble because it snows in the last couple of years, and so who wants to get in a brand new BMW, they've never driven before, don't know where all the buttons are and drive in the snow in Dallas. But we've got a great group of volunteers. But this year I think we're pretty good on the drivers because of that, the partnership with Alto, and then also the drivers that we do have. They only have to drive Pop Around Frisco up here and shouldn't be too bad. I hope. Good, good the guys.

Speaker 2 23:37

I think what's going to happen? They're all going to say hey, peter, can you get me a discount to some of the restaurants around here? We, hey, peter, can you get me a discount to some of the restaurants around here? We've got some fantastic restaurants. I think that's going to be the biggest one Like, hey, what can you do for me? But we'll figure that out. They'll have a great time doing that, that's funny.

Speaker 1 23:53

Well, Peter, I'm pumped for this tournament. The lineup, like I said, looks fantastic from a doubles perspective. The singles lineup is awesome as well. I know the venue is going to be great. The Cowboys always have top tier venues, so it's going to be a lot of fun. So excited to see you in a couple of weeks and check out the Dallas Open. Thanks for hopping on.

Speaker 2 24:16

Sounds good. Thanks, Will See you soon.