Israel Tennis Center – Ramat Hasharon

The Ramat Hasharon Tennis Center is the first of the fourteen centers we have established. The largest tennis center in Israel includes 24 courts, including five clay courts, two futsal courts made of synthetic grass, a 900-seat court with balcony and, of course, Canada Stadium, which contains 4,000 seats.

The opening ceremony took place on April 25, 1976, when Leah Rabin, the wife of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who over the years helped to raise funds for the Center, received the honor to cut the ribbon. More than 150 members of the Center from 15 countries came to the ceremony along with a crowd of 3,000 people, who saw how a strawberries field became a center for thirteen tennis courts and later grew to 24 courts.

Between the years 1979 and 1996, the ATP Riklis and Eisenberg tournaments were held at the Canadian Stadium – which, along with the Davis Cup games, provided rare opportunities for the tennis fans in Israel to watch the leading and most popular tennis players of the time, such as Jimmy Connors, Ilie Năstase, Brad Gilbert, Thomas Muster, Harold Solomon, Aaron Krickstein, Wayne Ferreira and others.

Many children who grew up at the Ramat Hasharon Tennis Center, have become over the years Israeli champions, national team players and tennis players at an international level, including Amos Mansdorf, Gilad Bloom, Anna Smashnova, Tzipi Obziler, Harel Levy, Noam Bar, Eyal Ran, Ilana Berger and Rakefet Binyamini.

Many international tournaments for adults and youth and national and regional tournaments are held during the year. In addition, the Israel Tennis Centers’ national team training for boys and girls of all ages takes place on the regular and clay courts in Ramat Hasharon. At the Center, there are also programs for the community, which are funded using donations from Israel and abroad: the Special Olympics program for children and adults with special needs and programs for endangered children.