By Randy Walker
@TennisPublisher
The tennis courts at Harvard University is the proposed site for Olympic Tennis in Boston’s bid to host the 2024 Olympic Games, it was revealed Wednesday.
The U.S. Olympic Committee chose Boston as the official U.S. bid city two weeks ago and, in a public presentation Wednesday, outlined the venues and plans for the Games, that included the construction of a temporary tennis stadium to host the tennis competition at the Harvard playing fields.
“The tennis court complex will be conveniently located within the University Cluster at Harvard University playing fields,” the bid reads. “It will be served by the Olympic route network from the I-90 via the new interchange under development by the state. This site is within walking distance of the Red line, the Green line and the Worcester/Framingham Commuter Rail Line at the proposed West Station.”
Planned seating capacity would be 20,000 and would consist of a temporary main stadium – and two smaller temporary stadiums – located just to the southwest of the Harvard football stadium, which is slated to host field hockey, and adjacent to the Harvard baseball field. The current Harvard University courts would also be used as competition and practice courts.
Harvard has a long and storied history in tennis, dominating the U.S. tennis scene in the infant stages of the sport in this country in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Harvard student Dwight Davis created the concept of international team tennis when he started the competition that became known as the Davis Cup in 1900. His Harvard university teammates Malcolm Whitman and Holcombe Ward were the members of the first U.S. Davis Cup team that defeated Britain in the inaugural matches played at Boston’s Longwood Cricket Club.
Most recently, James Blake, a Harvard tennis player in 1998 and 1999, reached a career high ranking of No. 5 and helped the U.S. win the Davis Cup in 2007. He was a member of the U.S. Olympic tennis team in 2008 in Beijing, where he upset world No. 1 Roger Federer in the quarterfinals, before falling in the bronze medal match to Novak Djokovic.
Boston’s competition for the 2024 Games could include Rome, Paris, and Berlin. The International Olympic Committee will choose the host city in 2017. To look at the entire Boston document, click here:http://cdn.2024boston.org/docs/USOC_Submission_4.pdf
There was initial speculation that the Boston Games would be a regional games where the tennis competition could even be staged at the Billie Jean King USTA National Tennis Center, 200 miles away, or even at Yale University in New Haven and its 10,000-seat stadium that hosts an annual WTA event.
To read about the history of the Olympic Tennis Competition, download the ebook “Olympic Tennis – An Historical Snapshot” here http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008EOXW40/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_q2tWub1SC6182 via Amazon.com
