Reigning Wimbledon champ Carlos Alcaraz to debut in Charlotte inaugural tennis event

Professional tennis is coming to Charlotte later this year — and it’s doing so in a big way.

The Charlotte Sports Foundation announced Wednesday that the inaugural Charlotte Invitational will be played in the Spectrum Center this winter, and it’ll feature four of the biggest names in the sport: Carlos Alcaraz vs. Frances Tiafoe on the men’s side, and Madison Keys vs. Sloane Stephens on the women’s.

The exhibition match will take place Friday, Dec. 6, a day before the ACC football championship game descends on Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium.

“It’s a world-class lineup,” Danny Morrison, executive director of the Charlotte Sports Foundation, said in an interview. “We believe it’ll be an event that’ll be very special for Charlotte. And to have current players who are so well-known across the globe here in Charlotte will make it incredibly special.”

To call these tennis players mere “stars in the sport” is a bit of an understatement.

Alcaraz is the reigning Wimbledon champion and the game’s most promising young player — a 21-year-old phenom who won the French Open earlier this month and is now the youngest men’s tennis player to win a Grand Slam on all three playing surfaces (hard, clay and grass). He currently sits at No. 3 in the ATP rankings, and his career trajectory is regularly compared to that of the sport’s greats, most notably Roger Federer.

The other three players are well-known too. Tiafoe is considered one of the best Americans in pro tennis right now and is ranked 30th in the ATP. Keys is ranked 12th in the WTA, and Stephens is a former U.S. Open champion.

Match times are still to be determined, and the event’s title sponsor will be announced at a later date, per the Charlotte Sports Foundation. Tickets will go on sale in the middle of July. Fans can visit CLTInviational.com for information on presale opportunities.

Event comes on heels of Western & Southern Open near miss

For Morrison, such an event has a special place in the pantheon of events that his organization has helped compel to the city — a list that includes the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, the Ally Tipoff, the Jumpman Invitational and more.

A lot of that has to do with the fact that Charlotte leaders have a clear thirst for pro tennis. Just last year, the city was in talks of purchasing the Western & Southern Open — one of the Top 10 tournaments in the world that has been in Cincinnati for more than a century — and bringing it to Charlotte’s River District.

The potential deal called for the creation of a $400 million tennis complex, which would help generate an estimated annual economic impact of $275 million to the city, Mecklenburg County officials said previously. Beemok, a South Carolina-based company that owns the tournament, had considered moving the tournament to Charlotte for months, the Observer previously reported — and Beemok’s founder, Ben Navarro, said at the time it “was a very difficult decision” to keep the tournament in Ohio. (It’s worth noting that Navarro — a described low-profile billionaire whose daughter is a pro tennis player — was once in talks to purchase the Carolina Panthers from founding owner Jerry Richardson.)

Morrison said that while the Cincinnati tournament ultimately didn’t relocate to Charlotte, it did prove something vital: that tennis fandom is abundant in the Charlotte region.

“First of all, and we sing this same song all the time: there’s not a better sports town in America than Charlotte,” Morrison said. “Charlotte has turned out for every single major event that we’ve had the good fortune to have in Charlotte. And this is just another example of that. This is our mission: Bring high-profile events that have economic impact and add to the quality of life, and certainly this fits the bill to a tee.”

A modest Charlotte tennis history

Generally speaking, Charlotte’s tennis history isn’t prolific — but it does have its fair share of highlights.

Stan Smith led the U.S. to a win in the Davis Cup final over Romania in 1971 at Olde Providence Racquet Club in Charlotte. At age 15, the legendary Chris Evert had the first really big win of her career in Charlotte in 1970 at Olde Providence, upsetting world No. 1 Margaret Court.

And in the 1980s, Charlotte’s World Team Tennis franchise called the Charlotte Heat won two championships in its first two seasons of that league, which was spearheaded by Billie Jean King. A WTT team existed in some form for several years after that.

But in the past few decades, Charlotte’s forays into professional tennis have dwindled. Venus and Serena Williams played a one-off exhibition match in then-called Time Warner Cable Arena in 2006. A yearly senior tournament called the Champions Cup featuring former pros like Jim Courier and John McEnroe came and went in the mid-2010s. Several other promising pro ventures never quite got off the ground — even as the city’s amateur tennis community continued to thrive.

That’s certainly what adds to the lure of this event, Morrison said.

As for if this event could pave the way for a high-profile professional tennis tournament in Charlotte’s future?

“I do believe we have the reputation of doing things in a first-class manner,” Morrison said. “The look and the feel is very professional, and I think that certainly helps as we try to attract other events to Charlotte. And the immediate reaction of people who know about this event in a confidential way — their immediate reaction has been, ‘Wow, what a lineup!’ And we love that reaction.”

Scott Fowler contributed reporting.