Serena, Sharapova to take part in charity virtual tennis event

New York, May 1 (IANS) Tennis stars like Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova, Naomi Osaka, Kei Nishikori and others will participate in a virtual charity tennis tournament.

IMG is the company coordinating the tournament titled “Stay at Home Slam” and it will be streamed on Sunday on Facebook Gaming and on the tennis Facebook page of IMG.

Two-person teams will compete using the Mario Tennis Aces game on Nintendo Switch.

Competitors will play the video game from their homes across the country, and each will receive $25,000 donated to the charity of their choice, with the winner of the tournament receiving an additional $1 million in donation.

“I am proud our IMG tennis clients came together so quickly to support a multitude of great causes,” said Max Eisenbud, SVP of tennis clients at IMG as per the official website. “It is a testament to the people we work with across all our divisions that we were able to bring this to life in such a short amount of time.”

“It’s been incredible to see the creative ways athletes are using social media to support people during this difficult time,” said Evan Shugerman, Facebook Athlete Partnerships Lead.

“We’re excited to be partnering with IMG to contribute to those efforts, which will bring some of the world’s top athletes together on Facebook for an entertaining and impactful competition.”

Legendary tennis player John McEnroe and popular YouTube personality iJustine (Justine Ezarik) will be commentating the matches.

The participating teams are:

Serena Williams & Gigi Hadid

Naomi Osaka & Hailey Bieber

Venus Williams & JuJu Smith-Schuster

Maria Sharapova & Karlie Kloss

Kei Nishikori & Steve Aoki

Madison Keys & Seal

Taylor Fritz & Addison Rae

Kevin Anderson & Ryan Tannehill

–IANS

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