World Team Tennis Returning To Citrus Heights Home At Sunrise Mall
CITRUS HEIGHTS (CBS13) — World Team Tennis is returning to Citrus Heights with the prospect of thousands coming to the area this summer to watch.
Workers are building a temporary stadium in the Sunrise Mall parking lot behind an orange fence. The whole point of World Team Tennis when it was created 40 years ago was to bring tennis out of the country club and to the masses, and you can't get more mainstream than a mall parking lot.
Jeff Launius is one of the owners of the California Dream tennis franchise, but he's not above helping build the stadium where they'll be playing this summer.
"Within two weeks you're going to see one of the premier tennis venues there are in World Team Tennis," he said. "We'll have a 2,300-seat venue that will be fantastic right here in an intimate atmosphere to watch."
It may sound strange to put a stadium in a mall parking lot, but it's something local World Team Tennis fans are used to.
The old team, the Capitals, played in the lost from 2000 to 2006, drawing some of the biggest names in tennis from Anna Kournikova to Serena Williams.
The team moved to Roseville and came back to Sacramento in 2013. The next year, the team attempted to move again and become the Las Vegas Neon, but owner Deepal Wannakuwatte was arrested in a federal fraud case and the league terminated the team in March 2014.
Now, tennis will be returning with a new team for a whole new season that begins July 12.
It's just so exciting to see the stadium coming up again," said Kathilynn Carpenter with the Citrus Heights Chamber of Commerce.
She says in past years, World Team Tennis drew people from around the region to travel to Citrus Heights and spend money.
Launius says he chose to move his franchise here from Texas because there are so many passionate tennis fans in the area.
"It is a great tennis town," he said. "The tennis participation in the Sacramento area is phenomenal. Through the charts."
Some of the matches will be televised nationally on the Tennis Channel, which will help put Citrus Heights on the map.
"We get a ton of media coverage and it generates awareness for the area," Carpenter said.
The season is short, lasting from July 12 to Aug. 2.
