March 9.2010-The BNP Paribas tennis tournament in Indian Wells will certainly have star power in the main draw. This year there will be will some competition from an exhibition featuring over 90 Grand Slam titles.
Inspired by the Hit for Haiti exhibition at the Australian Open, where hundreds of thousands of dollars were raised for Haiti relief efforts, this version at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden in California will feature past and present greats of tennis on Friday, March 12.
The first match of the exhibition will showcase 50 Grand Slam titles on the same court with Stefanie Graf and Lindsay Davenport taking on Martina Navratilova and Justine Henin. Next that evening will be a battle of 44 Grand Slam title holders as Roger Federer and Pete Sampras take on Rafael Nadal and Andre Agassi.
Besides the airing on Tennis Channel beginning at 7:30 p.m. pt, the event will be broadcast live in numerous countries around the world. Live web streaming will also be available on bnpparibasopen.org, TennisTV.com, atpworldtour.com, sonyericssonwtatour.com, usta.com, tennis.com, espn360.com, and others.
The BNP Paribas Open is the largest combined ATP World Tour and Sony Ericsson WTA Tour event in the world. The 35th anniversary of the tournament will be March 8 - 21, 2010 with defending champions Rafael Nadal and Vera Zvonareva and more than 300 of the top men and women tennis players in the world.
The Indian Wells Tennis Garden, located in the southern California desert,will host the event which offers equal prize money totaling $9 million.
Steve Simon, tournament director, says that this is the most attended tennis tournament in the world outside of the four major events and expects the “Hit for Haiti” exhibition to raise a minimum of $1 Million for Haiti relief efforts.
The net proceeds from ticket sales to this exhibition will be donated to the American Red Cross for their relief efforts in Haiti. Fans will also be able to donate to the relief effort through text messages and on-site contributions throughout the evening and event.
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