“The tennis world continues to grow; events continue to grow,” said Adam Barrett, the longtime tournament director. “The amount of events, and I hate phrasing it this way, that are still held in a parking lot are far and few between.”

But raising the bar also means winning a legal fight with Bruce Matheson, a descendant of the family that donated the land to the community that became Crandon Park, which is now the site of the tournament. Matheson has vigorously resisted attempts to further develop the park or create permanent facilities.

“Expansion unfortunately is a word we stay away from because of the Mathesons and others who are afraid of this growing out of control,” Barrett said. “We’re looking to replace temporary facilities with permanent facilities. We’re not looking to put more cars on the road. We’re not looking to be able to double the size of our capacity. We would like to if we had the space, but we don’t have the space, and we recognize that and we recognize that is not a goal for our partners, the village of Key Biscayne and Miami-Dade County.”

Barrett and IMG hope to break ground before next year’s event, and they are in part to blame for the tournament’s drop in prestige because they have been so public about what it lacks.

“We’ve sold our own slippage, let’s be straight about it,” said Eugene Stearns, a Miami lawyer who represents the tournament . “The more we emphasize the problems that need to be fixed, the more we provide ammunition, but we have no choice. We do want it to be world class, and in order to be world class, we have to push.”

But what happens if they fail to raise the bar?

“We will start looking at how we can run this event in this facility as a world-class event, which I don’t know is possible,” Barrett said. “And if we believe that it will jeopardize the long-term capability of our status as a Masters Series event, we will look at exploring options.”

With presumably no shortage of foreign interest, that could mean moving the tournament out of the country: something IMG already has done with smaller American events.