Charlotte City Council member works to bring pro tennis tournament to town

Charlotte Business Journal
·1 min read

Charlotte City Council member Malcolm Graham recently spent time at the U.S. Open in New York and earlier met with the sport’s top executive as part of a campaign to serve up a pro tennis tournament in the Queen City.

Graham, a Democrat, attended Johnson C. Smith University on a tennis scholarship. This weekend, the Charlotte Amateur Tennis Championship will be played for the fourth time. It’s an event Graham created in honor of his late sister, Cynthia Graham Hurd, a beloved librarian in the family’s hometown of Charleston, South Carolina. She was one of nine people murdered at her church by a white supremacist in 2015.

ALSO READ: Serena Williams loses third round of the US Open

Now, Graham is aiming to bring the pros to town, too.

“I think this is a market that’s ripe for it,” he told CBJ. “I think there’s an appetite in Charlotte and I think it’s something that many of our major corporations (will embrace). And I think the community would be very excited about it, based on what I’m hearing.”

In August, Graham met with U.S. Tennis Association CEO Lew Sherr while Sherr was in Charlotte on other business to lobby for an event.

Read the full story here.

(WATCH BELOW: Professional tennis could be coming to Charlotte)