The Mutua Madrid Open Virtual Pro, the innovative and virtual online tournament that will pit the best players in the world against one another from their homes from 27 to 30 April in the Caja Mágica’s Manolo Santana Stadium, which has been recreated in exquisite detail in the videogame Tennis World Tour (Nacon Gaming), will be streamed on Facebook Gaming.
16 ATP players (Rafa Nadal, Andy Murray, Dominic Thiem Alexander Zverev, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Gael Monfils, David Goffin, Kei Nishikori, Fabio Fognini, Diego Schwartzman, Denis Shapovalov, Karen Khachanov, John Isner, Lucas Pouille, David Ferrer and Frances Tiafoe) and16 WTA players (Karolina Pliskova, Elina Svitolina, Bianca Andreescu Belinda Bencic, Kiki Bertens, Dona Vekic Angelique Kerber, Madison Keys, Kristina Mladenovic, Carla Suárez, Victoria Azarenka, Caroline Wozniacki Johanna Konta, Fiona Ferro, Eugenie Bouchard and Sorana Cirstea) make up the competition’s entry list.
As well as the tennis players, eight content creators will participate, in parallel with the official competition, in a charity tournament that will see clashes between the biggest-name professional gamers in the industry; DjMaRiiO, Cristinini, Alexby, Seb Delanney, Gravesen, Borja Iglesias, Ibai Llanos and Grefg, as they use their PlayStation 4 controllers to show off their tennis skills.
The Mutua Madrid Open Virtual Pro can be followed in Spanish on PlayStation España’s Facebook page and in English on the Mutua Madrid Open’s page.
Streaming will start on Friday at 16.00 with the draws for the competition, which will be overseen by Andrea Levy (Madrid Department of Culture, Tourism and Sport), Gerard Tsobanian (CEO and president of the Mutua Madrid Open), Feliciano López (tournament director), Lars Graff (ATP supervisor) and Giulia Orlandi (WTA supervisor). This will be followed by the draw for the charity tournament, which will see the content creators come together with the tennis players.
The Mutua Madrid Open Virtual Pro will officially kick off on Monday 27 April at 15:00, and at the same time on the other three days. The broadcast, which will be similar to the television production for the conventional Mutua Madrid Open, will include a presentation for each match, with commentary, interviews with the players after each match and the presence of special guests, such as ex-tennis players and well-known journalists. A summary programme with the highlights of the day will round off each day of competition.
An added bonus for spectators will be the option of watching the tennis stars play from their home thanks to two windows on the screen. This means that everything that happens in the Tennis World Tour videogame will be enhanced by the reactions of the biggest ATP and WTA stars.
The Mutua Madrid Open Virtual Pro is a charity event aimed at helping the tennis players most in need at this time, those that have no income to help them through these months of inactivity and those affected by Covid-19. To do so, the tournament will include a total purse of 300,000 euros in the two competitions (150,000 ATP and 150,000 WTA), from which the winners will be able to decide how much they donate to the tennis players currently suffering economically, and the Mutua Madrid Open Virtual Pro will donate a total of 50,000 euros to the Madrid Food Bank to help reduce the social impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.
