{"id":898398,"date":"2026-09-16T21:54:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T21:54:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/898398\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T21:54:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T21:54:13","slug":"dirk-nowitzki-eyes-steve-nash-rematch-at-annual-tennis-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/898398\/","title":{"rendered":"Dirk Nowitzki Eyes Steve Nash Rematch At Annual Tennis Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"

DALLAS \u2014 Dirk Nowitzki<\/a> said Wednesday that he has barely played tennis in the last few weeks. He heads into Saturday\u2019s eighth annual Dirk Nowitzki Foundation Tennis Classic facing Steve Nash<\/a>, who will again captain the other team.<\/p>\n

Nowitzki made the comments on Shan & RJ on 105.3 The Fan<\/a>. The event runs from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. CT on Saturday at Banner House at T Bar M, 6060 Dilbeck Lane in Dallas, with a VIP after party to follow. Nowitzki has been traveling, including a week in Berlin at the FIBA Women\u2019s Basketball World Cup.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just got back in town,\u201d Nowitzki said. \u201cI was in Europe for a week at the Women\u2019s World Cup, so I haven\u2019t played much in the last few weeks. I\u2019ve been busy, traveling some. So hopefully today and tomorrow, maybe Friday, I\u2019ll swing the racket a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m able to hold my own against Steve on Saturday, since he\u2019s the other team captain,\u201d Nowitzki continued. \u201cHe always beats up on me every year, so it\u2019s time to set the record straight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nash and Nowitzki were teammates in Dallas from 1998 to 2004. Nash, a two-time MVP, also works alongside Nowitzki on Amazon\u2019s NBA studio show.<\/p>\n

Who Is Playing At The 2026 Dirk Nowitzki Foundation Tennis Classic<\/p>\n

The Classic moved to T Bar M, which Nowitzki called the family\u2019s home club, and this year marks its eighth edition.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re proud to bring the tennis event back,\u201d Nowitzki explained. \u201cThis is our one big fundraiser, obviously, for our foundation that allows us to do all the great work in the community and the food drives and the hospital appearances and all the good stuff that we do. And so this is our big fundraiser, and we\u2019ve been doing it. This is our eighth year now. We moved locations to T Bar, which is our home club, and it\u2019s been super fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGot a lot of support. Got some celebrities coming in again with Steve Nash, Peja\u2019s coming. Got some football guys with Michael Bennett and DeMarcus Ware. I\u2019m excited to see what they got,\u201d Nowitzki continued. \u201cSo got a lot of support from celebrities always. Local sponsors have been amazing. And obviously the fans that come out to support. So it\u2019s been a great event. It\u2019s been growing from year to year, and we can\u2019t wait.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great family event,\u201d Nowitzki added. \u201cWe have food. We have fun. We talk some trash on the microphones. We have some meet and greets. So it\u2019s a sweet event, and it\u2019s going to be taking place this Saturday at 11:30 at T Bar. So come on out and support, and it\u2019ll be a fun family day.\u201d<\/p>\n

The announced field includes Nash, John Isner, DeMarcus Ware, Peja Stojakovi\u0107, Mark Knowles, Devin Harris, Michael Bennett, and actor Boris Kodjoe, according to CW33<\/a>. Isner is a former world No. 8. Ware is the Dallas Cowboys<\/a>\u2019 career sacks leader with 117 and entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2023. Bennett played high school football at Alief Taylor in Houston and college football at Texas A&M, and he finished his 11-season NFL career with the Cowboys in 2019. Stojakovi\u0107 won the 2011 championship with Nowitzki in Dallas. The show\u2019s hosts said Rev Run will serve as master of ceremonies.<\/p>\n

The seventh edition was held Sept. 13, 2025, at the same venue and raised more than $1 million, PaperCity reported<\/a>. Past participants include Luka Don\u010di\u0107<\/a>, Andy Roddick, Ben Stiller, and Owen Wilson.<\/p>\n

Dirk Nowitzki On Celebrity Racket Skills<\/p>\n

Nowitzki\u2019s foundation also staged a celebrity baseball game in Frisco for several years. Baseball looks easy on TV, and tennis can be just as frustrating for anyone without a racket background.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s funny. Baseball looks so easy on TV,\u201d Nowitzki said. \u201cWhen you actually stand there, it looks like an easy motion. You\u2019re like, \u2018Wow, this is so hard to hit this little ball.\u2019 Tennis is also hard if you don\u2019t really have a racket background. It can be a really frustrating sport as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut over the years, we\u2019ve had some great players. We have some pros. John Isner is coming back this year, obviously, as an amazing player,\u201d Nowitzki continued. \u201cBut that\u2019s part of the charm of our event. We have some great players and some pros, ex-pros, and then we have some guys that were a little challenged, I would say, with the rackets.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that\u2019s part of the charm and part of the fun of the event. And even this year, we\u2019ve got some really good players and some players that need some work,\u201d Nowitzki added. \u201cIt\u2019ll be fun. Like I said, I don\u2019t know how good DeMarcus Ware and Michael Bennett are, but we\u2019ll find out this Saturday. It should be fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tickets on the event listing range from $90 to $150. All proceeds go to the Dirk Nowitzki Foundation, which funds projects and awards grants to North Texas nonprofits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS \u2014 Dirk Nowitzki said Wednesday that he has barely played tennis in the last few weeks. He…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":898399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":["post-898398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=898398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/898399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}