The Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, also known as the Women’s Stuttgart Open is Europe’s oldest women’s indoor tournament. It is played on clay courts and is a WTA 500 event on the women’s professional tour. The tournament was first held in 1978 and was played on hard courts till 2008. Since 2009, it has been held as an indoor clay court tournament.
The tournament features singles and doubles events in a single elimination knockout format. The draw size for the singles and doubles events is 28 and 16 respectively. The singles draw has four spots for qualifiers and four wildcard entrants. In doubles, a maximum of two teams can be given wildcard spots.
It features a prize pool of $922,573. The singles champion also receives a Porsche car. The winner of the tournament gets 500 ranking points, whereas the runner-up receives 325 points.
Each match in the tournament is played in the best-of-three sets format. If the match goes to a decider in singles, and if the set score reaches 6-6, then a tiebreak decides the outcome. The player who is first to seven points with a difference of two is the winner. In doubles, the third set is only a tiebreak. The first player to reach ten points with a difference of two is the winner.
The Porsche Tennis Grand Prix is scheduled such that the players can prepare their game for the French Open. Martina Navratilova is the most successful player at the tournament, having won six singles and eight doubles titles.
