Tennis fans living in Shenzhen will welcome the recent announcement from ATP on Tuesday that approves the city as the new location for the APT World Tour 250.

ATP’s official press release has more:

“The tournament in Shenzhen will be played from September 22-28 at the Shenzhen Longgang Sports Center, a state-of-the-art facility with more than 20 outdoor match courts. The transfer means that, for the first time, China will play host to an ATP World Tour 250, 500 (Beijing) and Masters 1000 (Shanghai) event across three successive weeks during the Asia swing from 2014.”

The move sees previous tournament-holders Bangkok (Thailand) losing out to Shenzhen after 11 years of hosting. It is unclear how long the ATP plan for it to run in Shenzhen, but it added:

“The addition of the ATP World Tour 250 event in Shenzhen from 2014 means that China becomes the first country outside the United States to host tournaments across all three ATP World Tour tournament categories.”

This is a clear signal from ATP that it considers China a highly key region and market for men’s professional tennis, and fans of the sport can expect to see the tournaments Shenzhen presence cemented in the coming years.

Photo credit: APTWorldTour