19 Quotes by Steve Bellamy

Would we love to have had (Roddick)? Absolutely. But there's going to be a lot of great tennis played by some amazing athletes.

She called just wanting to tell me about the facility and if she could get any kind of publicity on the Tennis Channel. She was telling me how neat this new facility was. She sent me some pictures and we came out and looked at it. We were like 'holy cow,' I can't believe this is a municipal tennis facility.

Next year, our aspirations are huge. We're going to have the world's biggest tennis tournament next year that's going to have tens of thousands of people that will play all over the country and they will all feed into Las Vegas. We'll have this big, mammoth draw the week before where probably 128 people all play for a chance to get into the main draw of the tournament and we're going to film it (for The Tennis Channel) and we're going to make it like an 'American Idol' type of thing. It's going to be cool.

I'm a promoter of this sport so if I've ever got somebody who wants to come watch and can't because they can't get a ticket, that's just breaking my heart.

It is just complete, guaranteed, instant credibility. They are two of the most exciting player in the history of the sport. The real magic of our draw is that it is so deep.

Outside of a Grand Slam, I don't think there's a tournament in the world that has this many top players representing their countries. It's really remarkable that we have this many No. 1's. And with so many countries being represented, it's going to give the fans from Las Vegas who are from those countries a chance to come out and root for their countrymen.

My mission is always to grow the game of tennis. I didn't want to just put on another tennis tournament. I wanted to do something that was different. I wanted to do something that could bring people that wouldn't normally go to a tennis tournament and watch, and then sell them on tennis while they are there.

We'll have another great field, believe me. Even with the bad weather, none of the players complained.

We were just looking to find the best partner that was willing to wrap their arms around the tournament and make a great home for it.