San Diego Open (tennis)

The San Diego Open is an annual professional tennis tournament on the ATP Challenger Tour, held in San Diego, California. The tournament was founded in 1971. It is held at the Barnes Tennis Center. In 2025 it returned as an ATP Challenger 100 event when it replaced the WTA 500 event.
The San Diego Open was an ATP 250 tournament held at the Barnes Tennis Center in San Diego, California. In August 2021, after the cancellation of the Asia Swing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Barnes Tennis Center was allocated a two-year 250 tournament license. Prior to that, it was exclusively a WTA event which was last held as a WTA Challenger in 2015 in Carlsbad, California.
Daniel Vallverdu took on the position of managing director, Ryan Redondo was named the tournament director and Billie Jean King accepted the role of honorary tournament chairman.
With the ATP Tour returning to China in 2023, the tournament's men's event ceased. In its place an ATP Challenger Tour 100 event was introduced in 2025.
This event was founded in 1971 as the Southern California Open, its official name. That year there had been two previous women's tennis tournaments in San Diego: a Virginia Slims of San Diego (sponsored name) aka the Southern California Open event, and the Wells Fargo Open, which ran from 1979 to 1982. Giscafre's former doubles partner, Jane Stratton, attained co-ownership of the tournament from 1986 until the event's cessation. The tournament has had various principal sponsors throughout its history, and has been played under the headings of the Great American Bank Classic, the Mazda Classic and the Toshiba Classic. The tournament was known for its strong player fields, location in the hills and atmosphere.
Although the tournament achieved Tier-I status only in 2004, it became a draw to the heavyweights in women's tennis since its inception in the 1980s, being a crucial warm-up tournament leading to the US Open. Past champions of the tournament include former world No.-1s Steffi Graf, Jennifer Capriati, Lindsay Davenport, Venus Williams, Martina Hingis, Justine Henin, and Maria Sharapova. Six players won the tournament more than once, four of them consecutively. Graf holds the record for most wins (4); Venus Williams holds the record for most consecutive titles (3).
The tournament's purse doubled to $200,000 in 1989, when the sponsor changed to San Diego–based Great American Bank from Virginia Slims, a cigarette brand owned by Philip Morris. The tournament moved from the San Diego Tennis & Racquet Club to the La Costa Resort and Spa in 1991, when the sponsor was changed to Mazda from Great American, which was in financial decline. On September 7, 2009, the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour announced the return of professional women's tennis to San Diego in 2010, under the sponsorship of Mercury Insurance. The Mercury Insurance Open was renamed the Southern California Open starting in 2013.
In 2014, the event was relocated to Tokyo, Japan.
The tournament became the Carlsbad Classic in 2015, hosted by the Park Hyatt Aviara Resort in Carlsbad, California, from November 23–29. As a WTA Challenger event, the Carlsbad Classic featured a 32-player singles main draw, an 8-player qualifying draw, and an 8-team doubles draw with $125,000 in prize money. It was the first WTA tournament held during Thanksgiving week.
The tournament returned to the WTA Tour as a WTA 500 event in 2022 for three editions at the Barnes Tennis Center. It was cancelled in 2025 and replaced by the Mérida Open on the WTA Tour. Starting in 2025, at the same location in San Diego, an ATP Challenger Tour event is held known as the Better Buzz San Diego Open.