Hamburg is good event even without Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal - Chief
In an interview to Welt, the German Open Tournament Director Sandra Reichel commented on this year's event that takes place in Hamburg. Dominic Thiem, Alexander Zverev and Fabio Fognini headline the event. "In future, the brand needs to be so important that it does not matter who is playing and who is in the final. The tournament is the star. The date is not an ideal one for a hard-court player. To play here after Wimbledon is not easy. But I am totally satisfied with our player's field, we have three top ten players. That's the best player's field over the last years. We will see some unbelievable clay-court tennis. Only because Nadal or Federer is not there, it does not mean that the event is not bad", said Reichel.
On how they managed to bring Zverev in Hamburg for the first time since 2016, Reichel added: "We keep the contact with Sascha for many months. He stressed how much he loves hamburgers and how much coming back to Rothenbaum would have meant. When he decided not to play in Washington this year, we got deeper in discussions and we reached an agreement. We have been working all days for at least 18 hours and we are fully focused on the tournament. We will celebrate only after the last point. The tournament has always been special, only the Grand Slams were more important to me. My father organized tournaments for 30 years, I grew up with sports. The decision of the German Tennis Federation to give us the tournament was not that bad," concluded Reichel.
from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/2JBd7Wm
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