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In their younger days, John McEnroe, Pete Sampras, Jim Courier, and Jimmy Connors were the best players in the world. Now the old tennis gods are competing against each other in a national tournament, the HSBC Tennis Cup, which is moving from city to city with a Thursday stop at the BankAtlantic Center.
Here in South Florida, if you buy VIP tickets, you can participate in a tennis clinic with Connors, the world’s number one player for more than 200 weeks, and Sampras, a 14-time Grand Slam winner and perhaps the greatest tennis player who ever lived. The clinic begins at 3 p.m., and another one starts an hour later with Courier and the notoriously angry McEnroe (so don’t cross him). At 6 p.m., there’s a cocktail party with all four. At 7:30 p.m., they square off in one-set, semifinal matches and then a final (no VIP tickets needed to attend the matches). The stakes are real: At the end of the national tournament, the top three players split a $1 million pool.
Thu., Sept. 22, 3 p.m., 2011
