Davis Cup tennis tournament returns to UBC in February 2013

The International Tennis Federation’s (ITF) Davis Cup returns to UBC’s Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre next month: from February 1 to 3. Tickets are in exceedingly high demand for the international tournament between Spain and Canada’s elite players; the remaining 2,700 tickets (900 for each of the 3 competition days) are expected to sell out quickly and will go on sale today this Tuesday, January 15th at 10 am.

Individual session (day) tickets can be purchased via Ticketmaster at $65, $105, and $175 seating categories, with orders limited to 12 tickets. Player rosters for each country do not have to be declared by the National Sport Federations until 10 days before the first day’s play. Organizers have increased the capacity at UBC’s Thunderbird Sports Centre to 6,213 for this year’s tournament, up from 5,000 seats for last year’s match against France at the University’s hockey arena. Highly competitive bids were placed by other cities in Canada to host this Davis Cup 2013 Canada vs. Spain match. Vancouver and Thunderbird Sports Centre were chosen again given the immense success of last year’s event, as well as the intimacy and atmosphere of the UBC venue and the city’s knowledgeable fans. The elite players also enjoyed the venue and the capacity Vancouver crowd.

Should this year’s event be another phenomenal success for organizers, we can certainly expect to see the Davis Cup return again to Vancouver and UBC in the years to come. The Davis Cup has already proved to organizers that demand is high in Vancouver for elite international tennis competitions.

Written by Kenneth Chan, a Columnist at Vancity Buzz. Follow Kenneth on Twitter: @kjmagine

Featured image credit: Morisawa81 (photo of the Davis Cup at UBC Thunderbird Arena in February 2012)