CHARLOTTE — Four of the top tennis players in the sport will face off in the Charlotte Invitational Friday at the Spectrum Center in Uptown Charlotte.
Sloane Stephens, Madison Keys, Frances Tiafoe, and reigning Wimbledon champion Carlos Alcaraz are all scheduled to participate in an exhibition doubleheader.
“Anytime a high-profile event comes to Charlotte, Charlotte shows up,” said Danny Morrison, the executive director of the Charlotte Sports Foundation. The nonprofit develops large-scale sports events and business opportunities in the city.
Morrison and the CSF team have been working to realize the concept for the last year.
“There are so many intricacies to each sport,” added Hannah Butler, the CSF Director of Operations. “Especially when we’re talking about the best athletes in the sport. Their expectations are incredibly high. They’ve played at the most beautiful venues ever.”
Butler’s role, in part, is to help recreate that environment inside the Spectrum Center. She’ll have help from tennis experts including IMG.
“They know how many tennis balls we need. How many towels we need, and all the different vendors that it takes to turn a basketball arena, a concert venue, into a tennis court,” she said. “There’s a lot more that goes into it than I think I even realized.”
It’s a process that’s been underway for months, though the physical transformation inside the Spectrum Center won’t occur until Friday morning.
“The arena is doing an incredible job. They have a Hornets game today, a conversion day tomorrow, a concert on Thursday, our event on Friday, a Hornets game on Saturday and they may even have things after that as well,” Butler said.
Once the process begins, the details involved in laying down the court are quite intricate.
“There can’t be a single divot on the concrete so that the court is perfectly flat and that the ball bounces the right way every single time,” Butler said.
The Charlotte Invitational won’t be the first time the Spectrum Center hosted a tennis match.
In 2006, Serena and Venus Williams faced off in an exhibition match at the former Bobcats Arena.
“(There’s) been plenty of interest in Charlotte for tennis over the years, so it’ll be a full house and an exciting venue,” Morrison said. “We look forward to maybe doing some additional tennis in the future.”
You can watch the Charlotte Invitational live on TV64 at 7 p.m. Friday. We’ll also have the Spanish broadcast on our sister station, Telemundo Charlotte.
VIDEO: Professional tennis coming to the Spectrum Center
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