The ATP tour has announced major changes for 2009, including cutting the number of ATP Masters Series Tournaments from 9 to eight, and moving the end-of-year championships from Asia to Europe. They are currently exploring plans to eliminate Monte Carlo as a Masters Series event in 2009 and reduce the prize money there from $2.1 million to about $500,000.They’re also planning to downgrade another Masters event in Hamburg. It was also announced that Shanghai will host one of the new masters series tournaments
ATP tournaments in 2009 will be ranked in four levels of importance: the four Grand Slam events, Masters Series 1000, Masters Series 500/Open 500, ATP 250 . Fans will not see the top players in the fourth category. Details not yet known.
