Issue link: http://itf.uberflip.com/i/560492
4 ITFWORLD SUMMER 2015 With less than a year to go until the start of Rio 2016, preparations for the Olympic Tennis Event are gathering pace. E xactly four years to the day after Andy Murray claimed his career-changing Olympic gold medal at London 2012, another Olympics will burst into life with the opening ceremony of Rio 2016. The special, once-every-four-years challenge to the world's best tennis players will once again be thrown down as they bid for the prestige of taking home a medal. It will be quite a change from the calm surroundings of the All England Club four years previously. In Rio, the Olympic tennis event is back in the thick of things, in the Olympic Park in the Barra region of the city. Swimming, diving, track cycling and gymnastics are among the other Olympic events which will be held here, as well as basketball, handball, judo, wrestling, fencing and taekwondo. The Olympic and Paralympic Village is close by. The Olympic Tennis Centre occupies a key position near the entrance to the Park, which is being built on a stunning triangular peninsula of land which has the sea on two sides. Construction work at the Olympic Tennis Centre is going well, with the circular 10,000-seater Centre Court, similar to those built for the Beijing, Athens and Sydney Games, taking on its familiar shape. Court No. 1 will seat 5,000 people, and Court No. 2 will hold 3,000, while the remaining seven outside courts will provide seating for 250 people each. The courts are scheduled for completion by late September, and the hard court surface RIO 2016 Rio here we come London 2012 medallists Juan Martin del Potro (bronze), Andy Murray (gold) and Roger Federer (silver) How the Olympic Park will look, with the tennis centre bottom right