Athens Olympic Tennis Centre

The Olympic Tennis Centre is a grouping of 16 tennis courts at the Athens Olympic Sports Complex, or OAKA, situated nine kilometres north of Athens city centre, at Maroussi. . It hosted the tennis matches at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. The centre consists of a main stadium, known as the Main Court, seating 8,600 fans – though only 6,000 seats were made publicly available during the Olympics – two semifinal courts seating 4,300 spectators – though only 3,200 seats were made publicly available during the Olympics – and thirteen side courts seating 200 observers each. The centre was completed in February 2004 and officially opened on August 2, 2004.

Each of the courts was a hardcourt. The Main Court, in particular, was extremely large by the standards of major tennis competitions, with the seats relatively far removed from the tennis court.

If you think the Centre looks like the one that was used at the 2000 Games in Sydney – you’re right! British architect Richard Rees designed both of them, and so the Athens centre court in particular looks very much like the centre court in Sydney, and Wimbledon’s No. 1 Court, which he also designed.

The Centre Court also houses the players’ lounge and locker rooms, media centre, tournament control and technology.

All courts are surfaced with Decoturf II, the same surface as the US Open.

The first formal matches held at the new complex were a men’s futures and women’s circuit event in March 2004.

The venue will also hosted the wheelchair tennis tournament during the Paralympics.

(sources .. wikipedia, itftennis.com)

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Athens Olympic Tennis Centre wikipedia entry
The Olympic Movement website

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