Williams sisters, Osaka, Sharapova to participate in virtual Mario Tennis Aces tournament

The Mutua Madrid Open is currently hosting a virtual tournament amongst ATP and WTA players, which is proving to be rather entertaining. Now talent company IMG has gotten involved, as they announced that eight of their top ten clients will participate in a live virtual tennis tournament. The event, titled "Stay at Home Slam" will be played on the Nintendo Switch, using the Mario Tennis Aces video game.

Competitors include Serena and Venus Williams, Naomi Osaka, Maria Sharapova, Kei Nishikori and other celebrities. They will play the game from their homes across the country, with each participant receiving $25,000 to donate to a charity of their choice. The winner of the tournament will receive an additional $1 million donation, which will be used for COVID-19 relief.

The event will be held on Sunday, May 3 at 4pm EST, and streamed exclusively on Facebook via Facebook Gaming at fb.gg/FacebookGaming and IMG's tennis Facebook page.

“I am proud our IMG tennis clients came together so quickly to support a multitude of great causes,” said Max Eisenbud, SVP of tennis clients at IMG. “It is a testament to the people we work with across all our divisions that we were able to bring this to life in such a short amount of time.”

Tennis stars participating, and their corresponding celebrity doubles partner are:

Commentary will be by retired tennis legend John McEnroe and YouTube personality iJustine (Justine Ezarik).

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