'S-Hertogenbosch Tournament Director on top players' appearance fees
Top players get an appearance fee to play ATP 250 and 500 tournaments, and the Libema Open that takes place in June in 's-Hertogenbosch does not make an exception. Stefanos Tsitsipas, Fernando Verdasco, Frances Tiafoe and Robin Haase are the first four players committed for the event. Alexander Zverev played there in 2017 through a wild card invitation, but he has not come back. "He played here two years ago, we made a reasonable deal with him", said the Tournament Director Marcel Hunze, who then opened up on the appearance fees: "I am not sure the grass-court tournaments can pay regular appearance fees like the other events. If players ask too much more than tournaments can pay, they cannot reach the deal. Then they can go to Stuttgart but if they cannot pay it either, they may comeback to us reducing the price. Sometimes players ask too much but I tell them, Listen, we cannot pay that much. We are able to pay this amount. Sometimes they say, Okay, I undestand. Sometimes they don't. It's part of the game and situation. We should not forget that a lot of players bring a lot of efforts to the tournament, they help to sell the sponsors and sponsorship."
If one day Federer, Nadal or Djokovic asked to play in 's-Hertogenbosch - they usually ask for $800,000 to $1 million fee - Hunze added: "We would certainly get them. Nadal has never played, Roger has played here a long time ago. If they wanted to play, we would come to a solution also financially but it all depends on them but not on us."
from Tennis World USA http://bit.ly/2DEneGD
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