ITF

ITF CIRCUITS AND PROFESSIONAL TENNIS EVENTS • OLYMPIC TENNIS EVENT I 13 While the tennis venue was initially scheduled to be completed by September 2015, construction is still underway and the venue will now not be ready until 2016. The ITF carried out a further site visit to Rio de Janeiro in July 2015 where they once again met with the different functional areas (departments) of the organising committee and visited the site of the Olympic Tennis Event. The court supplier has now been confi rmed as GreenSet, who will lay their Grand Prix Cushion synthetic resin surface. The ITF also received confi rmation that Hawk-Eye technology will be in place on all three show courts – Centre Court, Court 1, and Court 2 (one additional court to the London 2012 Olympic Games). The tennis test event took place on 10-12 December with the staging of the 2015 Brazil Masters. Brazil's leading professional, junior, senior and wheelchair players were the fi rst to compete on the newly laid GreenSet courts over three days of competition. While certain elements of the venue could be tested, the scaled down event meant that it was not possible to fully test all operational areas. During the test event, some key issues were highlighted that require attention and the ITF is working with Rio 2016 to resolve these. The ITF also took the opportunity to visit the hotels that will be used by the ITF Board of Directors, Olympic Committee, staff and Technical Offi cials at Games time. Two of the three hotels were still under construction (with a delay to the original schedule) however Rio 2016 is confi dent that they will be completed on time. The ITF Olympic Committee offi cially confi rmed the appointment of Stefan Fransson (SWE) as tournament referee for the Rio 2016 Olympic Tennis Event. Fransson was also tournament referee at the Sydney 2000, Athens 2004, Beijing 2008 and London 2012 Olympic Games. The ITF also learned that Luiz Carvalho was stepping down as Tennis Competition Manager for Rio 2016. He was replaced by Luiz Gomes and the rest of the tennis team is currently being fi nalised. Ranking Point Agreements were not made with the ATP and WTA Tours for the Olympic Tennis Event. However, the ITF has retained the same quota of athletes per nation with a maximum of six men and six women. Olympic Tennis Event

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