The brand new Stadium 2 was officially open at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden 2014

INDIAN WELLS, CA, USA 
 The brand new Stadium 2 was officially opened on Saturday night at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, home of the BNP Paribas Open - which kicks off on Wednesday. An exhibition event - the McEnroe Challenge for Charity presented by Esurance - was the opening act, featuring John McEnroe, Jim Courier and doubles legends Peter Fleming and Rick Leach playing a series of singles and doubles matches. The night of exhibitions raised $80,000 for local charities. Stadium 2 seats 8,000 and includes three full-service restaurants - Nobu, Chop House and Piero's PizzaVino. It's one of several parts of the expansion project that began at last year's event, which also includes a 19,000 square foot shade structure, 16 acres of new turf and more than 400 new trees. 
 "Stadium 2 was meant to be a different experience than the main stadium," BNP Paribas Open Tournament Director Steve Simon said in a recent interview with wtatennis.com "It is half the size so we changed the size of the court and the site lines to make it very intimate. We wanted Stadium 2 to have more of a restaurant experience where any fan could participate, so we integrated three new marquee restaurants: Nobu, Piero's PizzaVino and Chop House. Two of those restaurants actually have seating where people will be able to watch Stadium 2 matches while they are dining. All of them have patio areas. 
We have also integrated six other eating installations within the stadium and three of them feed another 19,000 square feet shade structure we built. It's all about a unique experience." Since 2000, the BNP Paribas Open has been held at the state-of-the-art Indian Wells Tennis Garden, which features a 16,100-seat main stadium - the second-largest in the world. Among its many innovations are becoming the first event in the world to offer the Hawk-Eye challenge system on every match court in 2011 and the first ATP-WTA combined event to award $1 million in prize money to each of its singles champions in 2012. This year, Hawk-Eye will be added for the qualifying rounds.