Copyright © 2015. No duplication is permitted without permission from Bob Larson Tennis.

A new WTA event to replace dead-in-the-water Florianopolis, Brazil, is headed to western Switzerland for 2017, according to the head of Swiss Tennis. Rene Stammbach said that the tournament to be held in February after the Australian Open, would depend heavily on participation from Swiss players Timea Bacsinszky and Belinda Bencic if it to have a viable long-term future.

The event is set to be moved from Brazil, where attendance was disappointing and the field was without any player from inside the top 60 at the 2015 edition. Stammbach called the contract for the indoor event “signature ready”.

The preferred venue for the tournament would be Biel, headquarters of the national federation.

The site would feature a 2,800-seat indoor main court as part of a national training center. Swiss Tennis officials are awaiting local building approval for the stadium and training center in the first quarter of 2016.

The last time the WTA staged an event in Switzerland was 2008 in Zurich.

Swiss Tennis is more than ready to take on the organizing of the event, with the organization posting a profit of nearly $300,000 from a budget of $12 million, according to the most recent records. The organization also bolstered its books with income of $700,000 from a 60-city tour of the Davis Cup won for the nation in 2014 by Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka.

Copyright © 2015. No duplication is permitted without permission from Bob Larson Tennis.