HP OPEN, TOURNEMENT INFO, 7-13 OCTOBER

TOURNAMENT INFO 
 Tier: International
 Prize Money: $235,000 
Surface: Hard
 Director: Takayoshi Matsuo 

The last stop on the calendar's Far East leg is the HP Open at Osaka's Utsubo Tennis Center. Samantha Stosur, who two years later would triumph at the US Open, captured the inaugural edition in 2009. The event made headlines in 2010 for featuring the oldest-known final in WTA history, with then-33-year-old Tamarine Tanasugarn beating 40-year-old Japanese native Kimiko Date-Krumm. 
And at the 2012 staging, Heather Watson became the first British WTA titlist since Sara Gomer won Aptos in 1988. A significant cultural center located in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu and its third-largest city by population, Osaka functions as one of the country's economic command hubs.