The brand new Stadium 2 was opened on Saturday, March 1 at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, which hosts the BNP Paribas Open tournament – an ATP Masters 1000 and WTA Premier event which begins on March 5, Wednesday.
An exhibition event featuring tennis greats Jim Courier, John McEnroe, Peter Fleming and Rick Leach took place that day where fans saw singles and doubles matches taking place. The exhibition matches raised a total of $80,000 which will be distributed to local charitable institutions.
The new stadium can seat up to 8,000 people and does feature three high-end restaurants – Chop House, Piero’s PizzaVino and Nobu. This was part of the elaborate expansion plan that began last year. Fans will get to see the 19,000 square foot shade structure and 16 acres of new turf and more than 400 new trees planted at the area.
“Stadium 2 was meant to be a different experience than the main stadium,” BNP Paribas Open Tournament Director Steve Simon said in an interview with WTATennis.com “It is half the size so we changed the size of the court and the site lines to make it very intimate. We wanted Stadium 2 to have more of a restaurant experience where any fan could participate, so we integrated three new marquee restaurants: Nobu, Piero’s PizzaVino and Chop House. Two of those restaurants actually have seating where people will be able to watch Stadium 2 matches while they are dining. All of them have patio areas. We have also integrated six other eating installations within the stadium and three of them feed another 19,000 square feet shade structure we built. It’s all about a unique experience.”
You can read the full WTA Interview with Steve Simon here.
The singles winners of the BNP Paribas Open 2014 Indian Wells will receive $1 million each.
