MUBADALA DC OPEN

July 28, 2026

Mark Ein

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Mark Ein, our Tournament Chairman, is here to talk about this week, what we have going on that's new and different, and then his vision for the tournament. Questions.

Q. Something that happened yesterday, the Naomi Osaka pop-up event, how did that idea come about, and what sort of made that possible? It's something I've not seen before.

MARK EIN: Thanks for asking that question. It came from her personally. I think one of the things that's always so special about this tournament, and every year it seems to be more so, is how much the players, they just comment to me all the time, they love being here. They love being watched, but they love being onsite and our fans.

They say it to me all the time. They say people here love tennis. They're so respectful, and it's one of the things that makes the tournament so special. Over qualifying weekend I had so many players comment to me about how you just never see those kind of crowds and that kind of energy in qualifying.

So Naomi was walking around the day before kind of experiencing that, and she told her team, I just want to do a meet-up, a cookout. They texted us late the night before and said, Could you arrange something? We found a space. We gave a little bit of -- we supported her with some food and drinks and getting the message out, although she got it out.

Obviously it was a great crowd. They got there, and she said -- everyone is crowding around. She said: Can you just tell them I'm going to be here for an hour? I'm not going anywhere. I just want to hang out.

It was like a hang-out. It was awesome because she did spend an hour there, and she really spent time with people. It was totally generated from her because of the experience she had here the last couple of days. Definitely a highlight of the week for everyone.

Q. What do you feel like is most different about the tournament this year? Are there any additions you are particularly proud of this year?

MARK EIN: Yeah, every year we try to elevate the experience for fans obviously. We start with fans, but then we look at the community. How can we do more with our platform?

Players is a big thing. How do we elevate the player experience? Honestly, media, we want to make sure you guys have a good experience. Everyone.

So every year we make incremental changes. I'll tell you, coming in, we did a bunch of things. I didn't know when they came together, it would feel like such a stair-step difference, but I think people have commented it does.

Just some of the spaces. Well, the Front Porch, changing the entrance, having people walk through that beautiful line of trees and then the area where Naomi did her thing yesterday. You know, you envision these things, but you just never know if they're going to work. You open them, and within 20 minutes of Saturday's opening, that place was packed. So that's cool.

We increased a few of the -- like the merchandise tent, because it's so popular, some of the other stuff. When it just all comes together, I think it feels elevated. We added LED lighting, which is really good, throughout the stadium. So that creates a little bit of extra energy.

Then, you know, players, there's a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff you don't see just in the facilities they have, things they want. More quiet rooms, more workout stuff. We had a player party the other night at the Ned, and a lot of people said it was the best player party of the year, so we appreciate that.

Our experience is if you make this a great experience for people, they want to come back and the event thrives, so we're always trying to elevate it for everyone.

The other big thing that we should talk about is just going from a 48 men's draw to a 32 men's draw is a huge change. Probably, in theory, we knew it would be big, and then you see the draw, and you realize it.

All of the other 500s are 32. We were the last 48. The women's is 32. We've wanted this for a while. We finally got there. So the cutoff to get into the men's draw directly was 47 in the world.

If you kind of think about that, we had five top-10 players signed up. Three ended up coming. Everyone is in the top 47. You're almost starting at the third round of a Grand Slam on the first day, so you get these unbelievable matchups.

Sometimes they're like tonight. You have, you know, Stefanos Tsitsipas playing Alex de Minaur. It's an unbelievable first-round match. Or Rafael Jodar playing Arthur Fils. These matches are unbelievable. But then even matches, you know, like Frances's match last night. He's playing someone people may not know, but he's a really good player.

That changes everything, I think, meaning from the very first day you have these unbelievable matchups because everyone who gets in the draw is a top-50 player.

Q. I saw the ceremony you did last night and your tribute to Mr. Brody. Tell us about how that came about.

MARK EIN: Yeah, so one of the things -- again, I'm a product of this tennis community, and I say it, but I really mean it, I think we have one of the great tennis communities in America. As I think about it, there are institutions and then individuals behind those institutions who dedicated their lives, who had vision and money and passion to create them.

I just thought when we convened our tennis community and the extended tennis community in the world, I want to use that platform to shine a spotlight on those individuals who have made this community what it is. So it's been something in our mind for a long time.

We did it last year. We honored the founders of the tournament: Donald Dell, John Harris, and Arthur Ashe. This year it was really about those incredible institutions in our region that serve kids.

So WTEF, who has been the charitable beneficiary for this tournament, has been around 70 years. Incredible impact. Cora Masters Barry, unbelievable inner city tennis and education program in Ward 8. Then Ken Brody, who was a mentor of mine, and I was friends with him when he envisioned the JTCC.

I said it last night. Ken traveled the world with his tennis racquet, and he wanted to bring that kind of world-class training center here. Not just for great kids, but also the community.

Everyone said you have to do it in Florida or California. It has to be warm weather in the United States. He said, well, I'm in the Czech Republic, and they're creating champions. Why can't we do it here? I was part of that journey with him and the sounding board, but I saw it.

He literally willed that thing into its existence, and it's now obviously one of the top training centers in the United States and really one of the best in the world.

There's an amazing story about how he literally identified a guy on the construction crew we saw doing a great job and said, will you come be a permanent employee to help take care of the facility, and he moved in with his two 2-year-old twins, and that was Frances's dad.

Ken, unfortunately, passed away a couple of years ago, but having a chance to honor him and people appreciate what he did was really meaningful for all of us.

Q. With an entry of Alexandra Eala, you have a whole new community of Filipinos flooding this place. What does that mean for the tournament to have a whole new segment just coming into the D.C. Open?

MARK EIN: So I will say, over the last month the ticketing team says at least 80%, if not more, of the requests in this tournament are about when is Alex Eala playing? Honestly, I think it's more, and they just didn't want to say it was more, but they're, like, virtually all. It's not an exaggeration. That's actually what they tell me.

When you look at the amazing players here and how many great stars there are, it says something about Alex's following. Obviously she's been an icon, become an icon in the Philippines, but worldwide. So there's obviously Filipinos everywhere.

I will say, earlier this year in the early spring our team said, this is a phenomenon that's spreading, and we should try to get Alex to come to Washington. So we're super glad she's here. We love the fans that she brings, but also, just her, she's such a really nice person and a grateful person and a humble person.

So having her here is honestly one of the really great things that's already happened this year.

Q. There's been a lot of talk about the renovations to the center and who might go about doing that. Can you comment on where the lease conversations might stand considering the D.C. Council has also committed nearly $10 million to the renovation efforts here? Can you comment on what that money might go to and where you stand with the potential of taking over that lease?

MARK EIN: I can't comment on that process at all. What I can say more generally that I think there's widespread consensus that this facility could be so much more than it is. Obviously the tournament needs improvements to keep being the level that it is, but way more importantly, what this facility could be 52 weeks of the year for the community.

You know, you look around. There's a bubble, and there was no heat in the tennis bubble. By the way, there's almost no public indoor courts in Washington, so this is one of the few places. There's no heat. There's an electrical fire. The bubble is 27 years old. It's supposed to be replaced every 10 or 15 years. Obviously the stadium is rusting.

There's locker rooms here that we use for a pro event. They're not allowed to be open for the public. So if you want to play tennis and take a shower, you can't do that. I could go on and on and on.

The fields are rutted. My daughter plays soccer there once in a while, and all the parents comment on the state of it. So I think everyone who comes here sees the state of the facility and says, we are desperate for better recreation facilities in Washington D.C., and here's this amazing site with great potential. How do we get it fixed?

I think the Federal Government obviously recognizes it, and I'm really grateful for the city, the mayor, Chairman Mendelson, Councilmember George who represents this area. Everyone came together and said, we really need to improve this, and the opportunity and the potential is enormous.

I think that's going to be super helpful. What it means for the tournament is stuff you don't even actually see. It's not much other than painting, which is important. The courts really need to be redone. The lights need to be redone. The locker rooms need to be redone.

The beautiful thing about tennis facilities, and there's great examples all over the United States, all over the world, when they're not used by the tournament, they can be available to the public.

So they just did a huge renovation in Cincinnati of where they play the tournament, and now they have a training center, an academy, they have leagues. It's open to the public. It's first class. You see the same thing all over the place. Charleston has an incredible place. The US Open facility is open to the public.

So I think any vision of this, whoever does it, the idea would be, of course, you want it to be a good facility for a world-class tennis tournament, but as important, if not more, is it should be an amazing place for the public. I think this should be the best urban public tennis facility in America.

That's what this should be, and that doesn't just mean the facilities. That's obviously the courts and the facilities. It also should be the instruction, the programming, the social part. This place should be thriving with people 52 weeks of the year for people who come here when the tournament is not going. That's not what's happening here for a whole bunch of reasons. It should be fixed.

The last thing I'd say is just as I've dug into this, people have been working on this since the early '90s. A Congressman actually introduced legislation in 1992 to fix this, and it never happened. However it happens, whoever makes it happen, I just think everyone agrees it should happen.

Q. I was wondering, you obviously discussed the $10 million of budget funding. I want to know if there's anything else that you see that could be improved or changed in the future?

MARK EIN: I mean, this thing has been, honestly, undermaintained and underinvested and I would say neglected for so long that $10 million is really just the start to get it to what it should be, again, for what the community deserves. Really and the tournament, but more for the community.

It does a lot of important stuff, but there's a lot more that, in my mind, should happen. You know, that's subject to a lot of other things, and I think the public should be involved. The neighborhood should be involved in helping shape what is here.

So I think beyond that, the $10 million really just goes to, again, core infrastructure. The rest of it about, like, do you want pickleball? Do you want padel courts? Do you want sort of the neglected fitness equipment to be improved? What would you like there? What kind of fields would you like?

If you go to the fields at RFK, that place is packed all the time. So you see when you build great rec facilities in the city, there's a massive need. But I think what ends up happening here really should be shaped a lot by what the public and the neighborhood wants. I do think over time it should be a lot more than just what that initial investment is going to do.

Q. A follow-up on the Alex Eala question. You talked about 80% of inquiries being about when she's playing. Can you tell us if there's been an increase in ticket sales and anything you can talk about compared to the previous years because she's playing here?

MARK EIN: So indicative of how amazing our tennis community is here, we've sold every ticket to this tournament since 2019, and there's a limit on how many. We're not allowed to sell more, so we don't have more to sell.

Again, I'd say that's really important. Again, I was talking about for people who are here covering tennis, when you see qualifying sells outs, which in tennis never happens, people just want to be here. So I think the fact this event is sold out for seven straight years is kind of a reflection of how much people here love it.

I wish we had more tickets to sell for Alex, but we didn't, but I'm pretty sure her first match is today, that there's going to be a ton of new people coming. That's the other joyful thing for all of us isn't just creating an event that people who love tennis come to, but to bring new people into the sport. Maybe new people to Washington D.C.

This tournament drives $35 million of economic impact in one week because we get so many people coming from around the country and around the world, and it's very international.

The other thing is the tournament is shown in 176 countries. Probably the single most globally-covered sporting event in the nation's capital. Obviously the ratings for Alex are going to be great.

So even though there aren't more tickets to sell, she's just great to have here, and I think it does a lot of other really good things.

Q. This might be a question for four years from now, but you're kind of a visionary guy. If improvements happen here, even if they don't happen here, can you see part or all of this tournament perhaps moving to the RFK site in the future where you'd have an enclosed stadium, and it would be something similar to what Stephen Ross does in Miami, or is that more out of the question and you value what this piece of property is to the history of the tournament?

MARK EIN: I'd say most likely not. I think it should stay here. For those who don't know, the reason we're here is because in 1969 Donald Dell and John Harris wanted to bring a tournament to Washington, the dawn of open tennis, and they brought in Arthur Ashe, who was Donald's client. He said, I will if you put in a public park. He said, I want to have a tournament where everyone can feel part of, and that's why we're here.

I think that's a really important legacy. We think about that all the time about being in a public park, being accessible, making it available to everyone. I think it would be a real shame if we couldn't continue it.

We do need -- for the tournament these infrastructure improvements have to happen and be at the level. There's only 11 pro tournaments in the world that are men's and women at this level combined. It's the fifth biggest tennis tournament in the United States. So there's expectations and standards that need to be met.

I'm optimistic somehow that's going to happen, and it will be able to stay here, and I think between the beautiful setting in a park actually, the location where it's available to everyone, and that legacy of Arthur's vision is one that I really hope it can stay here.

Q. To pick up right where you left off, two years ago we sat here, and you said if improvements weren't made, the tour was threatening pulling the tournament. Is the $10 million in the budget now enough to push off that threat and guarantee this tournament stays here long-term? My second question is, what would you say to those neighbors who have pushed back on a more large-scale development no matter who pays for it or how it happens?

MARK EIN: Yeah, the $10 million takes care of the stuff in the short and immediate term. You know, the sport evolves. The demands on the athletes get greater.

There's stuff like we need to lengthen the courts because they're hitting the ball so hard, they need to stand further back than they used to. So there's stuff like that. I'm sure it's going to continue to evolve, so there's always going to be more stuff.

As I said, I think there's stuff that could make it not just good for the tournament, but great for the community that seems -- has no impact on the number of people. The things that people get concerned about wouldn't change the number of people who come or how often it's used.

I would say that I know there's neighbors who have concerns. I think there's many, many more people who actually are eager to have this be a great facility in their backyard. I've had so many people reach out, come up, reach out to us to ask us about it because they live here, and they see the potential of what this could be, and it's not.

I actually think there's many, many more people in the neighborhood immediately and in the city who would love to see this be more than it is.

As I said, I don't know how or what, who and what's going to happen with certainty. I would say anyone who does that should do it in conjunction with the community and listen to what people have to say and shape it based upon what the neighborhood wants. Especially for what happens here for the 50 other weeks of the year when there's not a tournament.

Q. This has been a fairly civic-minded press conference. I'm curious if you have any interest in Carter Barron, the amphitheater, and if that can be part of any sort of renovation project? I remember going there as a kid, and it's been just in disuse for a long time. If that could be any part of a vision you have for making this place a better place for this community?

MARK EIN: It really isn't. It really isn't. We've been focused on this. This is a big -- just what we do temporarily is a big project. Obviously there's an RFP for something on just this part of it. That's a huge undertaking.

At some point Carter Barron, it has all the issues here and then more. It hasn't even been open for a long time. I'm sure that will come up. Then you would think having some connection to what happens here would make a lot of sense, but truly, we have not spent any time thinking about that. The focus is more on what the potential is here and what could happen here.

I do appreciate you guys. Thank you. Every year we really appreciate it. If you need anything, let us know, and thank you for coming.