Bob Moran's Big World of Tennis

An in-depth interview with tournament director Bob Moran, whose tennis terrain has expanded far beyond Charleston.

Bob Moran in Charleston. (Photo by Daniel Ward)

DANIEL ISLAND, S.C. — I’m delighted to bring Bounces subscribers an interview with Bob Moran, the longtime tournament director of the Charleston Open, whose reach across professional tennis has grown rapidly in recent years.

At this point, it’s hard to find someone more connected in tennis than Bob Moran.

Moran has worked at the Charleston tournament since 1999, back when it was the Family Circle Cup in its final year on Hilton Head. Moran was always a visible tournament director in my many trips to Charleston in the 2010s, but the scale of his work has grown considerably since the pandemic.

Locally, he oversaw a transformative $60 million renovation to the tournament site in 2022; that build was part of a rapid period of growth for the tennis empire he oversees as president of Beemok Sports and Entertainment, which operates the tournaments owned by Ben Navarro’s Beemok Capital.

After first acquiring the Charleston tournament, Beemok Capital made its biggest move by purchasing the Cincinnati Open in late 2022; Moran became tournament director of that ATP-WTA 1000 event in 2024. (Beemok Capital also owns the WTA 500 event in Monterrey, Mexico.)

In addition to his tournament director roles in Charleston and Cincinnati, Moran is closely involved in tennis governance, as tournament alternate representative on the WTA Board of Director and a member of the WTA Tournament Council and the ATP Tournament Advisory Council.

Because Moran is so tuned in across pro tennis, we cover a lot of ground in this interview for Bounces subscribers, from the renovations in Charleston to the desire to add an ATP event, from the divisive new schedule in Cincinnati (including the Monday final) to Ben Navarro’s overall ambitions in tennis.

If you are not a paid Bounces subscriber, there’s a lot you should have FOMO about if you miss this 3,700-word interview (not to mention all the other wonderful paywalled Bounces interviews and features you’ll have access to with a subscription).

Thanks to everyone who has already subscribed to Bounces to help make possible reporting like my trip to Charleston, and thanks to everyone who subscribes now! -Ben