PLANS FOR Tim Henman, Pete Sampras and John McEnroe to play in a tennis tournament for former stars in Glasgow next year have been thrown into doubt after the sponsor unexpectedly pulled out.

The Scottish Masters tour, which was due to take place at the city's SECC next March, aimed to capitalise on the growing popularity of the sport thanks to the exploits of Andy and Jamie Murray.

Now it has one month to find a £375,000 sponsor or it will not go ahead.

Scott Thorburn, managing director of events organiser Double Meridian, said that MCC Capital Projects, the Essex-based sponsor, had dropped the bombshell two weeks ago after nine months of negotiations.

"We had been talking to them since around last October. There had been letters of intent and we were at the contracts stage. Then they turned around and said, We are not doing it now'. The reason they gave was the economic climate.

"It's a huge disappointment. We have about four weeks to find a sponsor or the event almost certainly won't go ahead," he said.

He added that Cumbernauld-based Double Meridian, which part-organised the 2007 Cricket World Cup in the West Indies and the G8 summit at Gleneagles in 2005, would lose part of its £94,000 investment if the event collapsed.

With other stars signed up including Jim Courier, Richard Krajicek, Goran Ivanisevic, Mark Philippoussis and Michael Stich, the event is planned to take place over four days and is aimed at tennis fans and corporate spectators alike.

Tennis Scotland, which oversees the sport, has been planning to hold a festival of tennis alongside the tour, aimed at encouraging more people to start playing.

Taking place on synthetic rubber courts, the Masters tour is set to be the first time in around 20 years that a major international tennis event has taken place in Scotland.

The tour is owned by New-York-based Inside Out, which is run by former world No. 1 Courier and business partner Jon Venison, and holds tennis events under the Outback Champions Series Tennis brand in the US and Dubai.

Thorburn said that he originally had the idea of holding a tennis tournament in Scotland two years ago when the Murray brothers came to prominence. He looked at the similar ATP Tour, which comes to the Albert Hall in London each year, but instead approached Inside Out, believing it had a better line-up and the advantage of not having an event in the UK already.

"These kinds of events have a great balance of entertainment and skill. These guys may not be in their heyday anymore, but it means they don't care about things like photographs being taken.

"They are happier to deal with the public. It's not all about grinding on the court and pumping your arms in the air."

The deal with Inside Out involves a three-year contract and an agreement that the tour owner retains the US television rights. Double Meridian is then free to sell them in the UK and elsewhere, depending on what suits the sponsor.

The tournament's players are divided into two groups with the top four qualifiers going through to two semi-final games, followed by a final and a third-place play-off.

Thorburn insisted he was quietly confident that the event would still find a sponsor in spite of the looming deadline, despite the fact that he was not in talks with anybody at present.

He said: "It's hard to find a sponsor and it's even harder now that the economy has turned down, but we know we have got a good product and we are fairly upbeat about it. We also have the backing of Tennis Scotland and have spoken to the Glasgow City Marketing Bureau, who have both been very supportive."

A spokeswoman for Tennis Scotland said: "It would be amazing if the tour goes ahead. John McEnroe and Pete Sampras are massive names and would increase the profile of the sport and help us get more people interested."

MCC Capital Projects declined to comment.