Stars Smitten By Chengdu Pandas

A host of ATP World Tour stars turned selfie-taking spectators on Tuesday, taking part in an excursion to the famous Giant Panda Breeding and Research Base in Chengdu.

Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, South African Kevin Anderson, Argentinian Diego Schwartzman and the New Zealand-American doubles pairing of Artem Sitak and Nicholas Monroe were fortunate to visit on a day when the weather was co-operating, allowing the baby pandas to also be brought out of their rooms. Third seed Dimitrov was taken by the cute black and white baby mammals.

“It’s amazing to see all those little ones and some of the big ones,” Dimitrov said. “It’s pretty rare to do that in the middle of a tournament, but we all enjoyed it a lot.”

Chengdu has long been famous for its pandas, and Panda Bay (as the research base is known) was set up in 1987 in an effort to conserve the population of China’s native mammal.