The ITF World Tennis Tour: Timaru is an entry-level professional event for men and women with official ATP and WTA world ranking points up for grabs.
The event — which begins on Monday at the Trust Aoraki Tennis Centre — promises to showcase some of the best up-and-coming international talent going head-to-head with New Zealand’s finest.
It is the second-biggest tennis tournament in the country behind the ASB Classic.
Tennis South Canterbury administrator Anna Telfer said the tournament would be the biggest Timaru had hosted since the Davis Cup in 2000.
"It will be a similar size — we have the corporate boxes and stadium seats set up just like we did back then for that.
"The guy we had helping back then, Ferg [Hazlett], is still here and he’s managing this one which is great.
"It’s really good to be able to use the knowledge he has.
"He knows how it all works and what we need to do because Tennis New Zealand basically said we could do whatever we wanted in terms of setting it all up and they’d provide everything else."
The six day-competition will feature a 32-player singles draw and 16-pair doubles draw knockout competition for both men and women.
A total prize pool of $100,000 will be up for grabs.
General admission is free from Monday to Friday, and $10 for Saturday and Sunday.
Miss Telfer said she expected the event to be well attended.
"There will be 450 seats there so if they all sell for the weekend that would be great.
"I’m not sure how busy it will be during the week but hopefully after work it might be a bit busy, once people finish work they can come down and watch, or after school.
"I hope people do take advantage of it, especially during the midweek when it is free and won’t be as busy."
A lot of work had gone into make the event happen, Miss Telfer said.
"We’ve been working towards it since last August when it was announced," she said.
"They didn’t really give us much notice, it was just like, ‘hey, do you want to host this?’. So we’ve had six months to get things ship-shape.
"It takes quite a lot of effort, we had to touch up a lot of the stadium seating because you want it looking really nice, put up all the fencing at the back and just get things generally spruced up.
"You see one thing and then you go along and see another thing, and you’re like, ‘I need to get that done for the tournament’, so there’s been a list a mile long that’s had everyone ticking away.
"We want it looking good, you don’t want to do a big event this size and have the centre look a bit shabby. You want people to go ‘wow, this centre’s amazing’ so they come back."
She hoped the tournament would be a big boost for tennis in the region.
"I think it will definitely help grow the sport here. We will have a lot happening after it.
"It’s important to start offering those things straight away, so people don’t forget about tennis while the sun’s still shining.
"We have our hotshot lessons starting, our Xpress tennis beginner lessons for adults and social doubles big bash tournament starting on the 19th as well as much more."
The action will begin daily from 11am and tickets for the weekend can be bought from the tennisnz website.
