A fan captures an intense baseline rally on her phone. Before the applause fades, the video is already live.

Across the Cincinnati Open, thousands of moments like that unfold every day. Fans share highlights with friends on other continents, check live scores on the tournament app over lunch, and make their way across the sprawling grounds of the Lindner Family Tennis Center, all without giving the technology behind it a second thought.

They do not have to.

Last year, the Cincinnati Open completed a $260 million transformation, doubling the campus from 20 to 40 acres in just 11 months. Expanding the venue was one challenge. Making the experience feel effortless for fans was another.

Behind every replay, digital display, broadcast, and shared moment is Cisco Meraki, helping one of tennis's largest venues feel like a single connected destination.

The network that fans never see

Every major sporting event asks the same question: How do you keep thousands of people connected at the exact same moment?

Fans are posting videos from packed stadiums, broadcasters are transmitting matches around the world, and tournament staff are coordinating operations across dozens of courts and hospitality spaces all at once.

For Robert Nichols, principal technical architect at BEEMOK Capital, the ownership group behind the Cincinnati Open, the answer meant moving beyond a traditional build. Working alongside Cisco and partner Emerge, the team built an all-cloud-managed network foundation designed not only for this year's tournament, but for whatever comes next.

The scale matched the ambition.

Crews installed 40 miles of underground conduit, 17 miles of fiber-optic cable, and 90 miles of copper infrastructure across the property. Today, 320 Meraki Wi-Fi access points and 100 Catalyst 9300-M switches connect every corner of the venue, creating the digital backbone that keeps the tournament thriving.

Enhancing the fan journey

Doubling the size of the campus changed more than the map. It changed how people experienced the tournament.

Across 40 acres, fans are constantly making decisions: which match to see next, whether there is time to grab lunch, or where to catch the latest replay before heading back to the action.

Meeting those needs requires a clear, real-time understanding of what is happening across the grounds.

Using Meraki MV smart cameras, tournament operators gain live visibility into crowd movement, helping them understand how fans are flowing throughout the venue and respond as conditions change.

Meanwhile, more than 620 digital displays keep scores, schedules, match updates, and replays synchronized across the campus. So, wherever fans happen to be, they're never far from what's happening on court.

Beyond the stands

The tournament experience does not end at Center Court.

As the day's biggest moments unfold, they are shared with audiences around the world almost instantly. During the tournament, media teams moved photos from capture to publish in just 28 seconds, the fastest turnaround ever recorded at the event, bringing defining moments to viewers nearly as quickly as they happened on court.

For millions more, those moments arrive through the live broadcast.

Each year, broadcast partners bring the Cincinnati Open to an estimated 89 million viewers across 187 countries. The match feed depends on a resilient network capable of delivering uninterrupted coverage—because when play is live, there's no opportunity for a do-over.

Behind the scenes, that same network is also helping operators make smarter decisions throughout the day. With ecosystem partners, Meraki MV smart cameras count heads, not faces, giving tournament staff a near-exact picture of how many guests remain on site as the event transitions between day and night sessions. That visibility helps vendors stock food and beverages based on real demand, improving service while reducing waste.

Whether fans are in the stands or following from halfway around the world, it all begins with Meraki.

A foundation built to outlast the tournament

From the beginning, the technology at the Lindner Family Tennis Center was not designed for just two weeks of tennis. It was designed for everything that comes after. "Whatever we put in had to be able to grow," Nichols said. "The future for everything going on here requires the network to perform year-round."

That commitment to year-round growth comes to life at the Cincinnati Open Sporting Club, a home for six indoor tennis courts, six pickleball courts, and two padel courts. Among its many offerings, the Cincinnati Tennis Foundation's management of the Sporting Club's Junior Academy stands out, giving young athletes across Greater Cincinnati a place to discover the sport, build their skills, and see a future for themselves in the game.

No matter the occasion, a tournament match or time at the Sporting Club, fans of the game will not leave talking about fiber-optic cable, cloud-managed networking, or AI-powered analytics. They will remember the impossible rally, the seamless hospitality, and a day that felt effortless from first serve to match point.