Tennis stars like Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova, Naomi Osaka, Kei Nishikori and others will participate in a virtual charity tennis tournament.
IMG is the company coordinating the tournament titled “Stay at Home Slam” and it will be streamed on Sunday on Facebook Gaming and on the tennis Facebook page of IMG. Two-person teams will compete using the Mario Tennis Aces game on Nintendo Switch.
Competitors will play the video game from their homes across the country, and each will receive $25,000 donated to the charity of their choice, with the winner of the tournament receiving an additional $1 million in donation.
“I am proud our IMG tennis clients came together so quickly to support a multitude of great causes,” said Max Eisenbud, SVP of tennis clients at IMG as per the official website. “It is a testament to the people we work with across all our divisions that we were able to bring this to life in such a short amount of time.”
“It’s been incredible to see the creative ways athletes are using social media to support people during this difficult time,” said Evan Shugerman, Facebook Athlete Partnerships Lead. “We’re excited to be partnering with IMG to contribute to those efforts, which will bring some of the world’s top athletes together on Facebook for an entertaining and impactful competition.”
Legendary tennis player John McEnroe and popular YouTube personality iJustine (Justine Ezarik) will be commentating the matches.
“I Auctioned Myself Off” – Maria Sharapova Reminds Novak Djokovic About Their First Date
With the tennis being put on hold, the fans all over the world are craving for some live-action, but unfortunately, it cannot take place unless the world is liberated from coronavirus pandemic. To compensate for the loss, tennis players are coming up with fascinating stuff via social media. On Tuesday, Novak Djokovic and Maria Sharapova excited their fans with LIVE action on Instagram.
They recollected their sweet memories from the tour, and one of being going out for dinner. In the early days of their career, before Novak won his first Slam/title, they played against each other in a mixed doubles match exhibition in Indian Wells, California.
“I was young and you were young, way before you had any Grand Slam titles. I think we were playing mixed doubles against each other, and you said that if you won, I would have to pay for dinner – and I said, ‘Okay, who is this kid?” Sharapova reminisced.
“So we did!” – Maria Sharapova on a dinner date with Novak Djokovic
That day it was Djokovic winning the match and then he proposed Sharapova for dinner the same evening. In the beginning, Maria was reluctant and revised her thoughts to go out with Novak. But later, both of them ended up going to a Japanese restaurant.
Five-time Grand Slam champion Sharapova revealed the old ‘Kodak’ that Novak possessed at that time.
“So we did! You pulled out this old Kodak camera and you asked the waiter to take a photo of us, and I was like, ‘This feels like I auctioned myself off for this dinner,’ and here we are! I don’t remember anything about who we played with, but I remember this dinner and this old-school camera,” she added.
The Serb agreed to every bit Maria spoke about their very first dinner-date which was more than a decade ago. He was delighted to know the heartwarming episode of their life once again in detail. Later, Novak admitted losing his vintage Kodak camera.
They have been friends for a very long time now. Also, they have appeared in HEAD commercials together, as they were sponsored tennis racquets from the same brand.
Sharapova called off her tennis career in February this year and Australian Open 2020 was her last professional tournament.
