Tennis and engines, arm in arm for a special event. In the spring of 2023, for the first time ever, eight leading racket professionals will compete on a Formula 1 circuit. To be precise, at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola, which that year will celebrate 70 years of history. The project is called ‘Tennis on the race track’, born from an idea of CC LAB in synergy with the racetrack itself, and is the result of a great passion for the world of sport, automotive and entertainment , combined with the excellence of ‘Made in Italy’.
Italy is today at the center of the attention of sportsmen as never in its history, after a 2021 that saw it as a protagonist on several fronts. Tennis included, given Matteo Berrettini’s extraordinary final at Wimbledon, the excellent results of the twenty-year-old Jannik Sinner and the record of 10 Azzurri in the top 100 of the ATP ranking. But the main car and motorcycle brands are also Italian, those that every year enliven the Imola racetrack with high-level events. The hope of CC LAB is that it will be only the beginning of a long series of events of this kind, to be repeated in the next few years not only in Italy, but within the main world motor racing circuits.
Today, however, the focus is on the Enzo e Dino Ferrari International Circuit in Imola, the ideal setting within which to play an exhibition tournament, which in this specific case will be placed in the heart of the world tennis season, immediately after the Internazionali d’Italia in Rome and before Roland Garros in Paris. It will therefore be a sport party, but with a precise technical connotation, a further moment of preparation for the champions who will aim to become protagonists in the Grand Slam that takes place in the French capital: for this, a clay court will be set up with the same characteristics of the transalpine one, so that the top players present can guarantee themselves an ideal day in the middle of the busiest time of the year.
The format of the exhibition – to be played in one day – includes a ‘shoot out’, that is a direct elimination board with quick and intense matches. There will therefore be seven games scheduled in total. The protagonists will be chosen from among the best players on the circuit, with a particular focus on Italians. The central field will be set up on the starting grid of the Imola track, thus exploiting the existing structures and adding more seats to reach a total of five thousand.
Large screens will instead be placed in the adjacent areas, to allow a greater number of people to enjoy an event destined to remain in the annals. CC LAB and the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo and Dino Ferra warm up the engines: in the coming months they will reveal all the details of ‘Tennis on theracetrack’, already in pole position to provide a unique show to all sports lovers.
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