Big names, varied fields, no byes, more money, little downtime: On the rise of the 500

“This is one of my favorite atmospheres I ever played in,” Ben Shelton said after winning the title at the Dallas Open on Sunday.

Shelton is just 23, but he has already experienced some pretty electric and high-profile moments on court. He has played Novak Djokovic in the US Open semifinals, Jannik Sinner on Centre Court, Carlos Alcaraz in Court Philippe Chatrier, as well as team events like Davis Cup, Laver Cup, and the ultra-intense NCAA championships.

But here he was, talking up the energy that he felt all week inside the 12,000-seat Ford Center in Frisco, Texas. The fans there had packed the house for all five of his wins, but he wasn’t the only one to sing the praises of the tennis community in the Big D. The man who Shelton beat in the final, Taylor Fritz, said the same thing, and both of them—the top two Americans at the moment—sounded genuinely excited about returning next year.

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That was obviously music to the ears of fans and tournament officials. This is an event that has bounced from Memphis to Long Island to Texas in recent years. But the good feelings also seemed like validation not just for the tournament in Dallas, but for the entire category it falls under: the 500.

ATP 500s are the middle ground. As the name suggests, they offer less money and fewer ranking points than the Grand Slams and Masters 1000s, but more than ATP 250s and Challengers.

During the Big 3 era, though, they felt closer to the lower rung than the higher. Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic, none of whom needed or wanted to play every week, focused squarely on the Slams and the 1000s, both of which were mandatory for them to enter. At the same time, the 500s didn’t have an identity of their own. They were similar in length to most of the 1000s, but they didn’t come with the same strong fields, or dual-gender appeal, or destination locations, or top-tier sponsorship and promotion.

With the implementation of the tour’s One Vision restructuring plan in 2023, that has begun to change. The best-known part of that revamp has been the expansion of most of the 1000s from nine days to 12 days, in a bid to put them in the same league, money-wise and visibility-wise, as the two-week Grand Slams. At first, that change seemed like it would send the 500s farther down the ATP pecking order, and just help the rich get richer. But the shift has also given the 500s what they lacked in the past: Their own vibe.

It’s a vibe that stretches back to the origins of the ATP in the late-60s and early-70s. Two of the tour’s early movers and shakers, Jack Kramer and Ion Tiriac, liked tournaments with 32-player fields and no byes. That’s what 500s have today, and what distinguishes them from the 1000s, which give the Top 32 players first-round byes. At a 500, the seeds don’t get free passes, and the champion has to win five matches in seven days. That means a top player will typically be in action right away, on a Monday or a Tuesday, the way Jannik Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz were this week at the 500 in Doha.

The presence of Alcaraz and Sinner together at a mid-level event is another sign of the 500’s rise. As part of its restructuring, the ATP upped the number of 500s from 13 to 16—Dallas and Doha were two of the new ones in 2025. The tour also increased it 500-level bonus pool to $3.07 million, to be split among the Top 6 finishers in those events. In 2025, players in the Top 30 were mandated to play five 500s; that number was lowered to four in 2026, and includes at least one after the US Open. Whatever the number, giving players a choice of which events to enter helps give the draws variety. Unlike the Slams and 1000s, each of the 500s will have a slightly different 32-man lineup, especially at the top.

For the players, there’s one more advantage: Tournament owners at the 500s can offer appearance fees, which the Slams and 1000s can’t. Alcaraz and Sinner were each paid $1.2 to show up in Doha. Appearance money, of course, can be a double-edged sword. They guarantee that a player is in the field, but they can’t guarantee that, after already receiving a million bucks, he’ll be quite as desperate to win the title. Still, any tournament with Sinner and Alcaraz is good for the sport. Even without them, the points and money available at 500s will always draw a high-quality, highly-ranked crowd.

The expanded 1000s have faced criticism, especially from players who say they reduce their rest time, and their opportunities to to play more matches in different places. I like the idea that “bigger is better,” and I like the ATP’s greater ambitions for the 1000s. Tennis’s major advantages over other racquet sports are its events and backdrops—pickleball doesn’t have a Centre Court. So we should be creating as many must-see competitions as we can.

But I also like the speed of the 500s, the energy they build in a short amount of time, the simplicity of the draws and the variety of the fields. The Dallas Open will never rival the US Open or Indian Wells, but any place that can create an atmosphere like the one that Ben Shelton loved so much last week is good for tennis. It’s OK for the rich to get richer, when the middle can thrive, too.