Open for business... Rio 2016 tennis test event gets action underway at Barra Olympic Park
New venue getting ready to host sport’s biggest stars next year and will then leave important post-Games sporting legacy for Brazil
With a capacity for 10,000 fans, centre court will host the battles for gold medals (Rio 2016/Alex Ferro)
The first competition to be played in Barra Olympic Park – the heart of the Rio 2016 Games – is underway. The new Olympic Tennis Centre is staging the sport’s test event as it prepares to host Djokovic, Federer, Williams, Murray and the rest of the world's top players in eight months' time.
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The Aquece Rio Brazil Mastercup started on Thursday (10 December) and continues until Saturday (12 December). It features 74 male and female players from Brazil, including juniors and wheelchair athletes, playing in singles and doubles matches. The leading names are Bruno Soares, Thomaz Belucci and Teliana Pereira, along with Paralympic medal hope Natália Mayara.
“It’s fantastic, really impressive. Centre court is beautiful, enormous, and it gives me goosebumps to imagine in full”
Bruno Soares
The Olympic Tennis Court features a permanent 10,000-seat centre court, two secondary courts (with 5,000 and 3,000 temporary seats), seven outside match courts and six warm-up courts.
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During the Paralympic Games it will host wheelchair tennis and five-a-side football for visually impaired players and after the Games it will leave a sporting legacy to Brazil, forming part of the Olympic Training Centre that will cater for top professional players and youngsters from schools and social projects, while allowing the country to host more high-level events.
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The competition area and results systems are the main components being tested by Rio 2016 during this week’s event. It is the 20th Rio 2016 test event and the last of the year. Next year there will be 25 more test events as Games organisers continue to fine tune preparations for the main event.
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About 170 specialist volunteers are working at the test event (Photo: Rio 2016/Alex Ferro)
The test event features men’s and women’s, and adult and junior matches (Photo: Rio 2016/Alex Ferro)
With matches scheduled to run into the evenings, some will be be completed under floodlights (Photo: J. P. Engelbrecht)
All together there will be 16 courts – 10 for compeition and six for training (Photo: Rio 2016/Alex Ferro)
Some of Brazil’s best young players were the first to test the new centre court (Photo: Rio 2016/Alex Ferro)
