Officials at The Racquet Club of Memphis had a major announcement Wednesday.

They had been informed by the Association of Tennis Professionals Tour a few days earlier that the annual Memphis stop on the men’s pro circuit had been given a premier designation as one of the top 19 events underneath the four majors: Wimbledon, the French Open, the Australian Open and the U.S. Open.

So they scheduled a press conference. Good idea.

They held it at City Hall. Not such a good idea.

It created an awkward situation Wednesday afternoon. With most local television outlets sending news reporters to the press conference, the announcement confused those reporters not familiar with professional tennis or the annual Regions Morgan Keegan Championships at The Racquet Club.

Instead of being asked about the impact of the event’s upgrade, tournament owner Mac Winker was peppered with basic questions about the tournament. One TV reporter misinterpreted the eight-week session of Memphis-level events on the ATP Tour as being an eight-week tournament in Memphis. A wire-service reporter interrupted Winker at one point to simply ask: `What are we talking about here?’

The poor decision to hold the event downtown — which had news organizations believing the press conference to be something of a greater sports magnitude — diminished the announcement’s impact. Instead of asking about Memphis’s positioning as one of the sport’s top 25 events in the world, reporters spent 30 minutes trying to figure out what they were covering.

Realizing in some ways they had been misled, several reporters left the conference before it ended.

Perhaps next time tournament officials will take time to think through such a situation before acting. Maybe they’ll discuss the proper staging of such an announcement with those more familiar dealing with the media on a regular basis, like the University of Memphis, the Grizzlies, or the Redbirds.