The Miami Open has a new home for 2019. Played for more than 30 years at the Crandon Park Tennis Center, next year will see the event move to the Hard Rock Stadium, home to the Miami Dolphins NFL team, to the north of the city.
Bolstered by a US $500 million investment by the City of Miami in additions and renovations, the redevelopment of the stadium to accommodate the tournament is expected to be completed well before the start of the Miami Masters competition on March 18.
One of the major problems with the Crandon Park venue has been parked and the difficulty of access in and out of the complex.
Fans will have no such problems at the Hard Rock stadium which has been purpose built, and is used to handle the tens of thousands that attend every Dolphins’ game. Spectators will be able to park right outside the stadium and walk straight to their seats.
The work has seen the southern parking lot transformed into a tennis plaza, with landscaped gardens, fountains, and attractive pathways surrounding 12 match courts.
Once the football season is over, 18 practice courts will also be added. There are additionally plans for a food court, a beer garden, an al fresco dining area, and a music stage as organisers seek to create an all-round entertainment venue which will attract people to visit the complex, tennis fans and the general public alike, from across South Florida.
Ingeniously, the Stadium Court, which holds up to 13,800 spectators, will be erected inside the Dolphins Stadium as a temporary structure, borrowing the private boxes to create premium seating areas.
Whilst some purists have been upset by the move across town, the change in venue seems to have caught the imagination of the wider public, with organisers reporting that ticket sales are 22% up where they were at the same stage last year.
And sales for tournament-long passes have already exceeded the total that was sold for the 2018 tournament.
Miami Open tickets for both the men and the women’s events can be bought online from the organisers of the tournament itself. They can also be bought from ticket resellers like ticket liquidator, StubHub, and TicketCity, though be prepared to pay a little more than the normal ticket price if you use one of these sites.
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