If you have a sporting fan in your family and are not sure what to buy them for Christmas you might want to take the obvious route of buying them tickets for the big game or for their favourite team but have you ever considered buying them tickets to the Nottingham Open Tennis?

Sponsored by Nature Valley the Nottingham Open is an annual grass court ATP challenger tour event played by some of the world’s best tennis players as they prepare for the likes of Wimbledon.

The 2020 competition will be played at Nottingham Tennis Centre between 6-14^th June and tickets are available now from the Ticket Factory from as little as £8 each.

Last year British Number Three Dan Evans beat Russian Evgeny Donskoy in the Men’s Singles final over two sets whilst Caroline Garcia of France beat Donna Vekic of Croatia to take the Women’s Singles prize.

The competition is probably older than you think and has an unbelievable pedigree of participants originally known as the John Player Tournament and John Player Open it began in 1970 when American Stan Smith beat his compatriot Chauncey Steele in the final 6-3, 6-1.

A year later Julie Heldman became the competitions first women’s singles champion in 1971 before Billie Jean King (a year after appearing in her sixth Wimbledon final) won her first John Player trophy before defending her crown in 1973 beating Virginia Wade 8-6, 6-4 and also pairing up with Rosie Casuals to take the first Women’s Doubles title against Chris Evert and Betty Stove.

After just three finals in 1973 the Women’s Singles was scrapped but the men still carried on with Stan Smith winning his second Nottingham Tournament in 1974 two years before a famous final between Jimmy Connors and Ilie Nastase was abandoned at 6-2, 4-6, 1-1.

The Mens Tournament was also scrapped in 1978 but returned in 1995 as the Slazenger Nottingham Open and was won by the likes of Greg Rusedski, Jonas Bjorkman, Richard Gasquet and Ivo Karlovic (all twice) before being discontinued in 2008.

In 2015 however the competition returned for both men and women as an ATP Tour Event and has again included some of the planets top modern tennis players from Sam Querrey, Kevin Anderson, Andreas Seppi & Stevie Johnson Jnr in the men’s tour to the likes of Asleigh Barty, Johanna Konta, Karolina Pliskova and Caroline Wozniaki in the women’s.

If you want to see top world class tennis on your doorstep than the Nottingham Open in 2020 is the place where you can.

For tickets see here for early bird prices or check out the hospitality packages available for those that want an upgraded viewing of their day.

*Main image @VisitNotts Caroline Garcia the 2019 ladies singles winner of the Nature Valley Open in Nottingham.