Olympic Green Tennis Center, Beijing

Olympic Green Tennis Center, Beijing
Full name	The centre court of the Olympic Green Tennis Center
Location	Beijing, China
Broke ground	2003
Opened	2004
Surface	Hard, outdoors
Construction cost	USD ? million
Capacity	32 400 seats (11 Match Courts & 6 Practice Courts) 15,000 (National Tennis Stadium/ Diamond Court) 10,000 (Lotus Court/ Center Court) 4,000 (Moon Court/ Court 1) 2,000 (Show Court 1/ Court 2) 200 (Court 2-8/ Court 3-9) (Previous courts name are currently used)
Tenants
Tennis at the 2008 Summer Olympics (2008) China Open (2009-)

The Olympic Green Tennis Center or Beijing Olympic Green Tennis Court (simplified Chinese: 北京奥林匹克公园网球中心; traditional Chinese: 北京奧林匹克公園網球中心; pinyin: Běijīng Àolínpǐkè Gōngyuán Wǎngqiúzhōngxīn), is a tennis centre located in the Olympic Green. It opened on 1 October 2007. [1] It hosted the tennis preliminaries and finals of singles and doubles for men and women at the Beijing 2008 Olympics as well as the Paralympic wheelchair tennis competitions.

General information

The Center is located in Beijing, just 1.7 mi (2.7 km) from the Beijing National Stadium (a.k.a. The Birds Nest Stadium).

The tennis centre covers an area of 41.22 acres (166,800 m²) with a floor space of 285,394 sq ft (26,514.0 m²). According to the requirements of the Olympic Games, the centre have 10 competition courts and 6 training courts, with a capacity of 17,400 seats.

For the reason of China Open, which is a WTA Premiere Mandatory and an ATP World Tour 500 series tennis tournament, a brand-new stadium built and began use since 2011 China Open (tennis)|2011 China Open]], with a total capacity of 15,000 seats and a retractable roof.

The main courts, Center court, Court one and Court two, each represent a lotus flower, one of the emblems of the 2008 Summer Olympics. Each have 12 stands, each one representing a petal of the lotus flower. Center court has a capacity of 10,000, Court one 4,000 and Court two 2,000. The courts have been specially designed for natural air ventilation to reduce the amount of air pollution entering the courts, ensuring optimal health for both athletes and spectators. It also allows the courts to be cooled and with an installation of cooling machines, the courts' temperatures can easily be reduced to five degrees Celsius. Curtains attached to the roofs of the courts also allows them to be cooled in the heat of the sun.

The project embodies the concepts of Green Olympics, Hi-Tech Olympics, and People's Olympics. It integrates design experience of world sport architecture and will be a tennis competition venue of the state of the art design in keeping with international standards.

Timeline

Before The Olympics

The courts were opened on 1 October 2007 and were tested between 6 October and 20 October 2007 in the Good Luck Beijing 2007 ITF Pro Circuit, where 36 men and 44 women competed.

During The Olympics

Olympic Green Tennis Center during the 2008 Summer Olympics

The Courts hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. The following competitions were played:
- men's singles - 64-player draw
- women's singles - 64-player draw
- men's doubles - 32-player draw
- women's doubles - 32-player draw

The winners

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Men's singles	Rafael Nadal Spain (ESP)	Fernando González Chile (CHI)	Novak Djokovic Serbia (SRB)
Men's doubles	Switzerland (SUI) Roger Federer Stanislas Wawrinka	Sweden (SWE) Simon Aspelin Thomas Johansson	United States (USA) Bob Bryan Mike Bryan
Women's singles	Elena Dementieva Russia (RUS)	Dinara Safina Russia (RUS)	Vera Zvonareva Russia (RUS)
Women's doubles	United States (USA) Serena Williams Venus Williams	Spain (ESP) Anabel Medina Garrigues Virginia Ruano Pascual	China (CHN) Yan Zi Zheng Jie

During The Paralympics

The Courts also hosted the wheelchair tennis competitions of the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing. These were played between 8 September and 15 September 2008.

112 athletes (approximately 64-80 male and 32~48 female) were classified into disability group.

The competitions played included:

• men's singles
• women's singles
• men's doubles
• women's doubles
• quads singles
• quads doubles

The winners

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Men's singles	Shingo Kunieda Japan (JPN)	Robin Ammerlaan Netherlands (NED)	Maikel Scheffers Netherlands (NED)
Men's doubles	France (FRA) Stephane Houdet Michael Jeremiasz	Sweden (SWE) Stefan Olsson Peter Wikstrom	Japan (JPN) Shingo Kunieda Satoshi Saida
Women's singles	Esther Vergeer Netherlands (NED)	Korie Homan Netherlands (NED)	Florence Gravellier France (FRA)
Women's doubles	Netherlands (NED) Korie Homan Sharon Walraven	Netherlands (NED) Jiske Griffioen Esther Vergeer	France (FRA) Florence Gravellier Arlette Racineux
Quad singles	Peter Norfolk Great Britain (GBR)	Johan Andersson Sweden (SWE)	David Wagner United States (USA)
Quad doubles	United States (USA) Nick Taylor David Wagner	Israel (ISR) Boaz Kramer Shraga Weinberg	Great Britain (GBR) Jamie Burdekin Peter Norfolk

After The Olympics/Paralympics

After the Beijing Olympic and Paralympic games of 2008, the center will remain standing and become the new home of the Chinese Tennis Association. It has not hosted the 2008 China Open Tennis tournament, despite rumours it would. However, it will become the new home of the China Open from 2009 onwards.^[2]

See also

• Tennis in China

External links

• Beijing Olympic Green Tennis Center venue site
• World stadiums
• Wikimapia