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$1 Million raises on Hit for Haiti Night

By KarenWalker (TennisEarth.com), Submitted On

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It was a night to remember when eight tennis legends hit the court for the “Hit for Haiti” charity exhibition that was presented by Oracle at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells.

From the  women’s side, Martina Navratilova and Justine Henin played together as a team and earned  a victory with an 8-6 over Lindsay Davenport and Steffi Graf. On the other hand, Roger Federer and Pete Sampras defeated Andre Agassi and Rafael Nadal by the same scoreline in the second exhibition match of the memorable night.

After this,  Oracle CEO Larry Ellison presented a $1 million donation check to the American Red Cross Haiti Relief and Development Fund, that has been established to help those affected by the 7.0-magnitude earthquake that struck in January. Ronald Agenor, a former Top 20 player on the ATP World Tour, was there on court to represent Haiti during the presentation.

Ellison, whose company led a  fund-raising effort comprising of on-site, text messaging and private donations that was targeted to reach the $1 million goal, expressed “What we guaranteed was at least a million dollars, but people are continuing to make contributions. We have our fingers crossed, but with a little bit of luck, we'll tally everything up and we'll go over the million dollar target.”

After the match  Davenport said that “It was very, very fun. It's nice to play in front of a packed stadium with a little bit lighter atmosphere, and the crowd very happy over all shots and all outcomes.”
The event was broadcast in more than forty countries across the world. At the same time, it was streamed live online on the official website of the tournament.