CLEVELAND — Tennis in the Land is back in Cleveland for the 5th year. Tournament director, Kyle Ross, said some of the best players in the world will be here competing.
What You Need To Know
Tennis in the Land is a WTA 250 tournament
The venue in Cleveland is fully temporary and is turned from a parking lot to a tennis venue
There are about 100 people who work to make the venue what it is, in just under two weeks
Ross said around 16,000 fans will attend the tournament over the week long span. He explained how this venue is different than other tournament sites because it’s urban and fully temporary.
“It has like a unique flavor, and kind of character that a lot of events don’t,” he said.
Ross explained the work that goes into setting up the venue in just under two weeks.
“Operationally it’s hard. We have a lot to build, we build a 2,000 seat stadium, we paint, all these courts are parking lots throughout most of the year and then we kind of transform them into a world class tennis venue,” he said.
Ross said there’s about 100 people working to put the site together, which includes Marc McLaughlin. McLaughlin works on the electronic lane calling for the tournament.
“Replacing all the umpires. We’re calling foot faults, calling service faults,” he said.
There are three courts and 12 cameras on each. Since the venue is fully temporary, McLaughlin explained that it’s not built for something like this, so it’s a challenge.
“We have the cables that are being run at the moment, once the venue has got more of the seating and stuff in place, we’ll put the cameras up on temporary structures and yeah, we’ll just make it work,” he said.
Once the tournament is over, it will go back to being a parking lot, but the memories made at the tournament will last a lifetime.
“It’s a Cleveland event,. That’s the heart of who we are, but part of that is being able to showcase it to others as well,” Ross said.