The XL Bermuda Open tennis tournament has been cancelled for 2009, is unlikely to take place in 2010, and may even be lost for longer than that.

Tournament organisers have taken the decision to scrap next year's event because of uncertainty surrounding the redevelopment of the Coral Beach and Tennis Club where it is held.

Construction is due to begin at the resort in January and is expected to last until May 2012.

While not all of it would affect the tennis courts, it is expected that construction would prevent the tournament taking place until 2011.

And there is a greater threat to the tournament itself, with the two-year break raising the possibility that another event will spring up and fill the slot that Bermuda currently holds.

There had been a fear that it would be the current financial crisis that would force the cancellation of the tournament, especially after main sponsors XL ended their 15-year association with the event last month.

Those fears proved unfounded however with Alec Anderson, the director and co-founder of the tournament, confident that a new title sponsor would have been found.

"All the major sponsors had confirmed that they were in for next year," he said.

"Obviously we still needed to replace XL as the main sponsor, but we were fairly confident of being able to do that. I wouldn't say that we thought it was going to be easy, but we thought we could do it.

"We're just sorry that we couldn't make it happen.

"Realistically I think it will be more than one year before we go back, the construction hasn't begun yet, and in the current financial climate we don't know when the project will begin. It's more a case of wait and see.

"There is a small risk that if we are out for a couple of years the slot might be filled, but we are in the ATP's good books, we have a good reputation with them, and unusually they give us a choice of which week we want to hold the tournament, unlike other events which are told which week.

"The construction (at Coral Beach) is due to start in January, but there is some uncertainty about the extact date.

"With less than six months between now and the original Tournament date (April 2009), and with redevelopment plans in the works at Coral Beach, we decided to postpone the event until after the construction at Coral Beach has been substantially completed.

"We very much hope that it will be possible to stage future ATP Tennis events at that time.

"It's an unfortunate end to a good consecutive run, but the new proprieters at Coral Beach are happy to have the tournament there in the future, it was just that trying to hold a tournament with trucks and cranes coming and going wasn't ever really going to work."

Organisers are still hopefull that they will see the rising stars return to Bermuda for another 15-year run when the re-building at Coral Beach is finished.

In the past the tournament has played host to some of the brightest talents in the game, with the likes of David Nalbandian, Andy Roddick, and James Blake all taking part at one time or another.

@$:"We attracted the best player field for an ATP Challenger event anywhere in the world every year," said Anderson.

"We focused on bringing in the next rising star as well as hosting some of the well known players who have slipped out of the top 50."