Tennis Canada

The Site is Almost Set

July 7, 2008

For the fans who come out to see their favourites play tennis during the Rogers Cup, the Rexall Centre looks like a world-class sporting facility that is prim and proper and ready to host one of the biggest tournaments of the year. However, the site does not look that way year-round. A significant amount of work goes into preparing the tennis stadium and the surrounding grounds for all the action that is set to take place from July 19-27.

“Each year we have to create a new site plan that incorporates all of the changes that have been made,” said Rich Lant, director of operations for Tennis Canada and Rexall Centre. “There are always new sponsors, new areas that need to be added to the site and it’s a long process.”

Helping to lead the charge is Rexall Centre supervisor Zbignew Marcinkowski and his crew of approximately 25 people who do all of the heavy lifting and really make the transformation possible.

“Everything needs to be perfect,” said Marcinkowski. “We have to work with everyone to make sure that everything is done the right way and we need to do it very fast this year.”

The site crew has nearly one month less to prepare all that needs to be done this year as the dates of the tournament are moved up due to the Olympics. There are certain things that need to be done every year. For example, all of the courts are closed for resurfacing so that they are fresh for the professional players when they get here.

“We use the same surface as the US Open,” said Lant. “We also have increased seating this year for the Grandstand court because the play is televised on two courts during a men’s year.”

Those seats along with the upper level of seating on Centre Court are all installed by Marcinkowski and the crew. This year there are a particularly large number of changes that will be seen around the site.

“There are some key changes this year,” said Lant. “We have the Every Day Action Zone, we have a new retailer in the Merchant of Tennis who is going to make upgrades to the layout of the retail areas, there are improvements to the Rogers Clubhouse and we have Marigolds and Onions as our new caterers who have tons of plans for the site. So there is going to be a lot of exciting new things.”

Once the tournament is over, the work is over for many of the volunteers and part-time staff but not the site crew. They start tearing down the site the Sunday night of the final and it takes three consecutive weeks of hard work to get it all back to the way it was.

So when you come out to see the men of the ATP Tour strut their stuff in two weeks time, take a good look around and you will notice how the many members of the site crew can strut their stuff as well.