
Australian tennis star Nick Kyrgios will headline a star-studded basketball line-up taking part in the Sydney Kings Starlight Celebrity game at Qudos Bank Arena on Sunday, April 24th.
Kyrgios, a huge basketball fan, will trade his tennis racket for a place on the court when he lines up alongside other celebrities for the basketball clash organised by the Kings basketball team to raise money for the Starlight Children’s Foundation.
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet and 2GB breakfast show and television personality Ben Fordham will captain opposing sides in the Starlight Celebrity Game. Perrottet and Fordham will lead a cast of some of the biggest names in Australian sport, entertainment and politics.
NRL and boxing legend Anthony “The Man” Mundine will take the court, opposing his son and up-and-coming NSW basketballer Anthony Mundine Jr.
Television will be well represented with Studio 10 host Tristan McManus, Channel Nine personality Belinda Russell, actor Dan Ewing, and former Miss Universe Australia 2020 and I’m a Celebrity contestant Maria Thattil. Radio personalities Michael “Wippa” Wipfli and SEN’s Jimmy Smith will take the court as will renowned Australian hip hop artists and Kings fan L-Fresh.
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Also, from the sporting world, Kings great Brad Rosen will take the court as will NRL legend Jamie Soward.
Representing the media will be News Corp’s basketball scribe Matt Logue and television personality Jo Healy, who also carries the burden of carrying the MVP title from the last celebrity game.
Two of the Kings’ all-time greats in Shane “The Hammer” Heal and Steve “Mr Magic” Carfino will have the challenge of coaching the two sides.
Several other big names are expected to be announced very soon.
The Starlight Celebrity Game will be a fitting opening to what will be a massive celebration of basketball for NSW with the Kings v Hawks clash also featuring the return of the Kings’ past players and the Ring of Honour award presentation.
Growing up in a household where soccer was king, my earliest memories are filled with chants from packed stadiums and the rhythm of a ball being passed across neighborhood streets. But somewhere along the way, the quiet elegance and raw emotion of tennis pulled me in. What began as a curiosity became a lifelong passion; not just for the sport itself, but for the stories it tells: of grit, of heartbreak, of improbable comebacks and human resilience.
As a tennis writer, I bring the observational lens of someone who didn’t grow up in the sport, but fell in love with it as an outsider; a perspective that lets me see both its technical beauty and its emotional depth. Over the years working with TennisUpToDate, I’ve had the privilege of reaching more than 3.5 million readers worldwide, with one of my features ranking among the site’s top three articles.
With a background in storytelling and a creative mind always searching for meaning beyond the scoreboard, I aim to craft narratives that go deeper than results and rankings. Whether it’s a rising star breaking through or a veteran fighting off Father Time, I try to capture the heartbeat behind the headlines.
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