The Qatar ExxonMobil Open dates to 1993, and for most of its life it was a season-opening ATP 250 staged in January at the Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex in Doha. From 1993 to 2024 it ran at 250-level, before being upgraded to the ATP Tour 500 series in 2025. That elevation reshaped the calendar slot: the 2026 edition runs February 16–21, the week after its WTA sibling, the Qatar Open (WTA), with the two events sharing the same Doha facility. It's one of just two ATP stops in the Middle East, the other being the Dubai Championships down the coast.
What sets Doha apart is less the surface — standard outdoor hard — than the showmanship. The Qatar Open was the ceremonial opener of the ATP season starting in 2009, the year Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer kicked off the campaign on a court built on a boat off Doha Bay. The pair returned the next year for a "magic carpet" court in the Souq Waqif, then in 2011 played a court laid in the water of Doha Bay. The complex itself features 24 hard courts and a 7,000-seat center court.
The honor roll is loaded. Record singles champion Roger Federer won three titles (2005, 2006, 2011), while Rafael Nadal took the 2014 crown. Djokovic won back-to-back in 2016 and 2017, and Andrey Rublev took the title in both 2020 and 2025. The recent finals trace the tour's pecking order: Daniil Medvedev beat Andy Murray for the 2023 title, Karen Khachanov edged a young Jakub Mensik 7-6(12), 6-4 in 2024, and Andrey Rublev survived Jack Draper 7-5, 5-7, 6-1 in the 2025 final.
The first 500-tier editions have only sharpened the field. The 2026 final pitted Carlos Alcaraz against Arthur Fils, Alcaraz closing it out 6-2, 6-1 — the kind of marquee pairing the upgrade was built to attract. The 2025 promotion expanded the singles draw to 32 and lifted the prize purse to $2,760,000, cementing Doha's status as the Gulf's premier men's hard-court stop.