ticket sales and donations for flood relief in Australia where floods have recently ravaged Queensland and other parts of Australia. Less than a week after the Brisbane International tennis tournament took place in Pat Rafter Arena, the tennis stadium and complex was flooded including the centre court and all the outer courts. “Rally for Relief”, which was organized by Tennis Australia continues a very positive trend of very public charitable tennis exhibitions by the tennis world, especially in the past year. Just a month ago, Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal played back-to-back exhibitions in Switzerland and Spain to raise money for the work of their respective foundations in Africa. Tennis legend, Martina Navratilova, also undertook to climb Mount Kilimanjaro for charity this past December. At the same time, many top pros such as Andy Roddick hold major annual fundraisers during the off-season which raise money for charity.

Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Andy Roddick, Andy Murray, Lleyton Hewitt, Kim Clijsters, Aussie Samantha Stosur, Pat Rafter, Caroline Wozniacki, Vera Zvonareva, Ana Ivanovic, Victoria Azarenka all played in the "Rally for Relief" exhibition matches before a sold out crowd of more than 15,000. The players were in good spirits and a lot of joking took place during and between points. There was also a special auction of player apparel, "Shirt off their backs" to raise additional money from the auction of shirts worn by the players in the exhibition matches. Sam Stosur is donating money for every ace she hits "down under" and the ATP and WTA are also pledging $10 for every ace hit by players Brisbane International, Medibank International Sydney, Moorilla International in Hobart and the Australian Open. Donations were also collected at the "Kids are Free" day on the Saturday before the start of the 2011 Australian Open. All in all, it was a perfect intro to the start of the 2011 Grand Slam season at the "happy Slam" aka the Australian Open!

Posted by TC at 06:14 AM |