 |
ENKA Arena: The New home of İstanbul Cup event
The İstanbul Cup now has a new home as it continues to host the world's famous tennis stars and also to play a major role in developing Turkish tennis. The prestigious event will take place at the ENKA Arena starting with this year's tournament, which kicks off today.
Tournament director Coşkun Erginer said the founder of the tournament, Garanti Koza İnşaat, has so far invested $400,000 in the ENKA Arena, which is located in the İstinye district of İstanbul, to provide a permanent home for the İstanbul tournament, according to a report on the official Web site istanbulcup.com.
The new ENKA Arena has a capacity of 3,000. There was no permanent venue for the İstanbul Cup in its first four years, and Garanti Koza had to pay huge sums to rent the Ataköy Holiday Inn for the inaugural event before a temporary tennis stadium was built in Tekstilkent. Erginer said about $10 million was spent in the first four years.
Erginer and Garanti Koza are striving to make ENKA Arena a tennis stadium that is compatible with WTA standards, and the tournament sponsors are providing part of the funds to this end.
Unlike the clay courts on which the previous four İstanbul Cup events took place, this year's games will be played on hard courts constructed with materials purchased from the Australian Rebound Ace Sports Company. İstanbul Cup official Cem Çetin, who is in charge of media relations, said with the installation of hard courts, the İstanbul Cup now looks like the US Open tennis tournament, part of the Grand Slam, which is to run between Aug. 21 and Sept. 13. Noting that night matches will also take place, Çetin said, “The lighting system on the courts has been changed and perfected for night matches.”
The ENKA Arena has three courts, one of which is a center court that has seating capacity for around 1,500 spectators, as well as five training courts.
Türk Telekom and Spor Toto have taken another major step in their contribution to Turkish sports by becoming the main sponsor of this year's Sony Ericsson WTA Tour İstanbul Cup Tennis Tournament.
The İstanbul Cup event, which is being held as an official tournament of the Turkish Tennis Federation for the first time this year brings together famous women's tennis stars in the new 3,000-capacity ENKA Arena.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| BERİL DEDEOĞLU |  |
||
| Yemen and beyond | |||
| ABDULLAH BOZKURT |  |
||
| Turkey and Mexico: Distant yet so close | |||
| ABDÜLHAMİT BİLİCİ |  |
||
| Google kidnaps Gül! | |||
| İHSAN YILMAZ |  |
||
| The Egyptian elections, Islam and Islamists | |||
| MARKAR ESAYAN |  |
||
| There is need for a new initiative | |||
| EMRE USLU |  |
||
| Operational errors | |||
| HASAN KANBOLAT |  |
||
| Are Russian tourists being discouraged from visiting Turkey? | |||
| CHARLOTTE MCPHERSON |  |
||
| The modern ‘Great Game’: women’s role and status | |||
| KLAUS JURGENS |  |
||
| Back to the ’80s | |||
| KATHY HAMILTON |  |
||
| Random acts of violence | |||
| MERVE BÜŞRA ÖZTÜRK |  |
||
| Adding insult to injury in Uludere | |||
| NICOLE POPE |  |
||
| Shifting responsibility | |||
| YAVUZ BAYDAR |  |
||
| ‘Errorism’ | |||
| ORHAN MİROĞLU |  |
||
| ‘Strategic vision’ | |||
| ORHAN KEMAL CENGİZ |  |
||
| Turkey through Amnesty International’s eyes | |||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
