From tennis to basketball to football, Singapore’s sports calendar lights up with major events
History will be made later this month as cycling great Mark Cavendish races for the final time at the Tour de France Criterium
MANY sports enthusiasts are licking their lips in anticipation of the many major international events coming up in Singapore, whether they are planning to participate in some of them or just soaking in the action as spectators.
The World Aquatics Swimming World Cup 2024 wraps up on Saturday (Nov 2) evening at the OCBC Aquatic Centre, with the three-day event featuring the likes of French Olympic gold medallist Leon Marchand, Switzerland’s Noe Ponti and Americans Kate Douglass and Regan Smith.
Next up on the calendar is the Tour de France Prudential Singapore Criterium on the weekend of Nov 9-10. The event that starts and ends at the Esplanade Park will see Mark Cavendish, one of cycling’s greatest champions, bring the curtain down on an 18-year professional career that has brought him 165 wins.
Not long after that, the annual Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon will take place from Nov 29 to Dec 1 as over 50,000 runners will hit the streets in what is the region’s only World Athletics Gold Label race.
Here is a closer look at three other upcoming events that sports fans should not miss:
Harlem Globetrotters world tour
Call them athlete-entertainers, if you like. The Harlem Globetrotters – the famous exhibition basketball team from the US – will perform on two nights at the OCBC Arena on Nov 23 and 24, as they look to dazzle fans with their unique blend of athleticism, comedy, drama and theatre.
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Their opponents are none other than the Washington Generals, the team they have “defeated” on thousands of occasions over the decades. The Globetrotters were established nearly a century ago – 1926, to be exact – and they did not originate in the New York neighbourhood of Harlem, ironically, but in Chicago.
They were first known as the Chicago Globetrotters, before they were rebranded as the New York Harlem Globetrotters and it was in 1929 when they became the Harlem Globetrotters. To date, they have played more than 26,000 exhibition games in 124 countries and territories.
Expect plenty of antics, trick shots and laughter from these larger-than-life basketball stars in a match where the final score does not really matter.
Asean Mitsubishi Electric Cup
When it comes to regional football supremacy, it is the Asean Championship that every team in South-east Asia covets the most. The latest edition of this biennial tournament takes place over four weeks – from Dec 9 to Jan 5 next year – with the 10 participating teams placed in two groups.
Singapore are in Group A along with the two-time defending champions Thailand, Causeway rivals Malaysia, as well as Cambodia and East Timor. The 55,000-seater National Stadium in Kallang will host two fixtures as the Lions face Cambodia on Dec 11 and Thailand on Dec 17.
The five teams in Group B are the 2022 runner-up Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, Myanmar and Laos. Indonesia are the team to watch in that group. With the experienced South Korean Shin Tae-yong as their head coach, he is hoping to lead the Indonesians to the title for the first time and put to an end their painful record of finishing second on six previous occasions.
The top two teams from each group progress to the two-legged semi-finals. Should Singapore make it to the final four, they will get to play the home leg at what would surely be a sold-out National Stadium.
Singapore Tennis Open
The newly opened Kallang Tennis Hub, a stone’s throw away from the Sports Hub, will be where Singapore welcomes the world’s top female tennis players as they take part in the Singapore Tennis Open from Jan 27 to Feb 2 next year.
Tennis fans will remember the euphoria and adrenaline when the Lion City hosted five editions of the season-ending Women’s Tennis Association Finals from 2014 to 2018, as top stars like Maria Sharapova, Caroline Wozniacki, Ana Ivanovic and the Williams sisters graced the centre court at the Indoor Stadium.
The Singapore Tennis Open, to be held here for three years until 2027, will feature a 32-player singles draw and a 16-team doubles draw. There will be two days of qualifying matches (on Jan 25 and 26) that fans can watch for free. In all, over 60 matches will be played before the champion is crowned.
No players have been announced for the tournament as yet, but with the Singapore Tennis Open taking place just a day after the Australian Open ends in Melbourne, there is a chance that some of the players from the year’s first Grand Slam will make their way to the Republic.
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