The Madrid Open is an annual professional tennis tournament held in Madrid, Spain. It is played on clay courts at the Caja Mágica in Manzanares Park, San Fermín, and is held in late April and early May. The tournament is an ATP Masters 1000 event on the ATP Tour and a WTA 1000 event on the WTA Tour. The tournament is traditionally played on a red clay surface, though it was played on blue clay courts in 2012.
In 2012 blue clay was used for the first (and only) time in professional tennis
Spanish player Rafael Nadal clinched the title five times on home turf (a record).
Petra Kvitová (winner in 2011, 2015 & 2018) holds the record in Madrid for the most title wins (three).
Simona Halep has reached four finals in Madrid, winning her first title in 2016 before defending it in 2017.
Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over or around a net and into the opponent's court. The object of the game is to manoeuvre the ball in such a way that the opponent is not able to play a valid return. The player who is unable to return the ball validly will not gain a point, while the opposite player will.
French singles player Guillaume Rufin serves to Czech player Tomáš Berdych in a tennis match at the 2013 Australian Open
Painting from Cremona; end of the 16th century
Jeu de paume in the 17th century
Augurio Perera's house in Edgbaston, Birmingham, England, where he and Harry Gem first played the modern game of lawn tennis
