Dubai is impressive and dynamic, often opting for the extraordinary over the ordinary. They don’t shy away from conceptualizing a gigantic 4000-foot glass pyramid city with no cars, or underwater suites in ultra-luxurious hotels. Though the pricey Neptune Suite at Atlantis, The Palm became a wonderful gem of a suite, the same could not become of the world’s first underwater tennis court that was planned in 2015.
Polish architect Krystztof Kotala, of 8+8 Concept Studio, envisioned a groundbreaking idea of an underwater tennis complex situated offshore in the Persian Gulf, between the Burj al Arab and the Palm Jumeirah islands in the United Arab Emirates, per Forbes.
It would house in addition to an insane variety of fishes and marine animals, seven-courts with a distracting rooftop coral reef. This part-aquarium and part-sports complex was said to cost $2.5 billion nearly a decade ago. The monumental cost of making the tennis arena wasn’t the only hurdle that came in its way of fruition.
There were several concerns like leakage, ensuring a structure that could withstand earthquakes and tsunamis, and with a sizable portion of water and aquatic animals hovering above there was the complexity of light refraction.
With some formidable engineering challenges, managing to create a stupendous piece of glass that would cover the roof and withstand the water weight etc made the project die down at concept stage. “There is not an investor but I would like to get interest as I think it is a good idea,” he told Arabian Business in April 2015.
The designer even started a website to raise investor awareness which is now offline. Plans went quiet and inspite of Kotala sharing he was in talks with investors in the United States nothing took shape.
While the dream of an underwater court went kaput, Dubai did boast an interesting tennis court that stood 689 ft high. More about that mentioned in detail below-
Dubai did create headlines with a legendary tennis match
Federer and Agassi played out a friendly tennis match on Dubai’s iconic Burj Al Arab’s helipad. The space was converted into an artificial grass court beaming against the Dubai skyline and indeed made for the most daring tennis court ever. It was a marketing stunt for the Dubai Tennis Championship and the brainchild of its director Salah Tarak. “It was amazing,” Federer said.
“I didn’t know at the time, when we were doing this, that it was going to have such an impact. I had an idea of how we could make it better; we had a helicopter, which was going to film it all around, really show on what kind of a platform we were playing, instead of just having a picture taken of the hotel. It can really tell how high up we are and I think that also made a difference.”
He continued, “Ever since, everybody talks about it and I still hear stories about people saying, ‘OK, can we play tennis there?’. They are told: ‘we don’t have [a court]’, but they go: ‘No, no, I know you do’.” Trust Dubai and its mavericks to leave a lasting impact!
