USTA Finds a Home in Carson Complex

The U.S. Tennis Assn. is expected to move the headquarters for its revamped player development program to Southern California, striking a deal with Anschutz Entertainment Group.

“We’re close to a deal,” Arlen Kantarian, the USTA’s chief executive in charge of professional tennis, said in Houston during the Davis Cup quarterfinal against Spain.

Details are being finalized, but the location would be in Carson. Construction has started on a $120-million sports complex at Cal State Dominguez Hills, which will include soccer and tennis stadiums. The soccer stadium will take 15 months to complete and is scheduled to open in June 2003, according to AEG President Tim Leiweke.

A month later, the 13,000-seat tennis stadium is scheduled to open. The tennis complex is the home of the Pete Sampras Tennis Academy, and Kantarian said the USTA is working on combining forces with the academy.

Now, the USTA’s player development center and staff are in Key Biscayne, Fla., home of the professional men’s and women’s tournament. Officials envision maintaining a presence in south Florida as well as Flushing Meadow, N.Y., home of the U.S. Open. A finalized agreement could be announced as early as this week or as late as this month.

The deal has been long in the making. Paul Annacone, once the longtime coach of Sampras, was hired as managing director of USA Tennis High Performance, months after the USTA realized it needed to explore a change in its development program. Kantarian and Annacone were in Southern California in February, meeting with AEG officials and looking at other sites.

This is viewed as a smaller piece of the puzzle in a larger proposed deal between the USTA and AEG. Ideally, Kantarian would like to see either a combined event or back-to-back men’s and women’s tournaments in Carson, which would kick off a summer season of tennis leading up to the U.S. Open.