The tournaments have comprised a Latin American segment of the tour since 2001, but next year's effort will mark the first time they have worked together to promote it as a group.
TENNIS ON THE TUBE
The US Open Series was a television ratings winner for the USTA.
The Series, introduced this summer, comprised 10 North American hard-court events on the ATP and WTA tours. ESPN broadcast nine hours with a 75 percent increase in overall household viewership compared with the network's coverage of the same tournaments in 2003. ESPN2, which broadcast nearly 90 hours of the Series, had an increase of 43 percent in viewership.
The JP Morgan Chase Open final with Lindsay Davenport defeating Serena Williams, was watched in 608,000 homes, the largest tennis audience in ESPN2 history.
HITTING THE RIGHT NOTES
When she was growing up, Anna Chakvetadze played the piano. One day, her mother suggested tennis. Soon, Chakvetadze made a decision.
"OK, let's stop with piano," she told her mother. ``I want to play tennis.''
It was an easy decision, said the 17-year-old, who defeated French Open champion Anastasia Myskina at the US Open on Thursday. She was not very good at the keyboard.
"I didn't like [the piano]," Chakvetadze said. "When you are eight years old, you want to move and playing games and everything. I didn't like [it]. That's why I stopped."
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