'Gerard Pique wants revolutionize tennis' - Puyol
In an interview with La Vanguardia, Barcelona Open Executive Director Xavier Puyol spoke about the tournament reaching an agreement with Tennium company to manage the event. Puyol said: "We have a deep admiration for Gerard and for all what he is doing. Those elite sportsmen are examples of humanity and for the younger guys. Kosmos is making a revolution and they are changing tennis. It makes sense with a historical tournament like Davis Cup that was falling but in our cases, we did not look a revolution but for evolution. Our tournament is one of the best ATP 500s for earnings and for the amount of top ten players... Our rhythms now are very different and that's the difference."
They took the decision once the Davis Cup has ended. "It was planned. The initial idea was to make a decision on July 31 but because of some committee members' state of health, we could not. We decided to extend it to late November, once we saw the Antwerp tournament (Tennium) and Davis Cup (Kosmos)."
Asked what they will invest on, Puyol concluded: "On a technological innovation, for example. We want to empower social media marketing to make the average age of the fans getting lower: attracting the youngest guys. We also have to give an additional value to fans who spend six hours a day in the tournament, with activities besides tennis. You need to evolve hospitality..." said Puyol.
The 2019 edition of the Barcelona Open was won by Dominic Thiem who defeated Daniil Medvedev in the final. The Austrian also defeated the top-seed Rafael Nadal in the semi-final in straight sets. David Ferrer who played his penultimate tournament in Barcelona lost to Nadal in the third round.
from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/37VfjCr
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