Queensland Tennis Centre, known during its development as the Tennyson Tennis Centre, is a

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

venue in

Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of his ...

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the states and territories of Australia, Australian state of Queensland, and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a populati ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. It is an A$82 million tennis facility opened on 2 January 2009 at the site of the demolished

Tennyson Power Station The Tennyson Power Station was a coal-fired power station in Tennyson, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, which operated between 1953 and 1986. The power station was the second major plant constructed for Brisbane, the first being the New Farm P ...

. Since January 2009 the Queensland Tennis Centre has been the host centre for combined men and women's international

tournament entitled the

Brisbane International The Brisbane International established in 2009 is a professional tennis tournament played on outdoor hardcourts in Brisbane, Queensland in Australia. It is a WTA Premier tournament of the WTA Tour and was part of the ATP World Tour 250 seri ...

, a combination of the former

Next Generation Adelaide International The Australian Hard Court Championships was a former professional tennis tournament established in 1938 and held until 2008. The event was played on clay courts until 1977 when it switched to hard courts. The tournament was a combined event for m ...

event in Adelaide and the Mondial Gold Coast Women's championships.

Construction

Pat Rafter Arena, Queensland Tennis Centre 2020, 02

It was designed by internationally recognised stadium designers

HOK Sport Venue Event Populous is a global architecture, architectural and design practice specializing in sports facilities, arenas and convention centers, as well as the planning and design of major special events. Populous was created through a management buyou ...

and The Mirvac Group's in-house architectural practice, HPA Pty Ltd and constructed by

Mirvac Mirvac is an Australian property group with operations across property investment, development, and retail services. This entity now broadens their clientele and shareholder return on investment by venturing across multiple development sectors, ...

as part of the Tennyson Riverside development. The main court was designed to incorporate a

PTFE Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is a synthetic fluoropolymer of tetrafluoroethylene that has numerous applications. It is one of the best-known and widely applied PFAS. The commonly known brand name of PTFE-based composition is Teflon by Chemour ...

glass fibre fabric roof. This

tensile membrane structure A tensile structure is a construction of elements carrying only tension and no compression or bending. The term ''tensile'' should not be confused with tensegrity, which is a structural form with both tension and compression elements. Tensile st ...

allows diffused light through into the arena reducing the need for artificial lighting. The light weight of the fabric also reduced the amount of steel required and saved on building costs. Brisbane-based company MakMax Australia (

Taiyo Membrane Corporation , based in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan, is a specialty contractor for the design, engineering, fabrication and installation of tensile membrane structures. History Founded in 1922 as Nohmura Tent Company, the company faced setbacks during World War ...

) supplied and installed this roof along with other smaller outdoor structures at this venue. It has twenty-three International Tennis Federation standard

tennis court A tennis court is the venue where the sport of tennis is played. It is a firm rectangular surface with a low net stretched across the centre. The same surface can be used to play both doubles and singles matches. A variety of surfaces can be u ...

s, including the centre court and two showcase courts, representing all playing surfaces (

hardcourt A hardcourt (or hard court) is a surface or floor on which a sport is played, most usually in reference to tennis courts. It is typically made of rigid materials such as asphalt or concrete, and covered with acrylic resins to seal the surface and ...

, clay and grass). The centre court ''Pat Rafter Arena'',Stadium named after Pat Rafter
/ref> named in honour of the Australian tennis player

Patrick Rafter Patrick Michael Rafter (born 28 December 1972) is an Australian former world No. 1 tennis player. He reached the top Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) singles ranking on 26 July 1999. His career highlights include consecutive US Open ...

, has a

seating capacity Seating capacity is the number of people who can be seated in a specific space, in terms of both the physical space available, and limitations set by law. Seating capacity can be used in the description of anything ranging from an automobile that ...

of 5,500 (with an extra temporary seating of 1,500 bringing total capacity to 7,000).

Davis and Fed Cup fixtures

The Queensland Tennis Centre has hosted several ties in the

Davis Cup The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and is contested annually between teams from competing countries in a knock-out format. It is described by the organis ...

and

Fed Cup The Billie Jean King Cup (or the BJK Cup) is the premier international team competition in women's tennis, launched as the Federation Cup in 1963 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the International Tennis Federation (ITF). The name was cha ...

representative tournaments.

References

External links

*
Details of Development
* {{Tennis at the Summer Olympics Tennis venues in Australia Sports venues in Brisbane Sports venues completed in 2009 Tensile membrane structures 2009 establishments in Australia Venues of the 2032 Summer Olympics and Paralympics

Construction

Davis and Fed Cup fixtures

See also

References

External links