The Hamburg European Open to Become a Green Event

The Hamburg European Open will become a “green event”, according to the Tennis Tour Talk website.

The ATP 500 event which is held at the Am Rothenbaum venue was awarded the contract to participate in the pilot phase “Sustainable Events” of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg in 2020, as announced by the Environment and Energy authority and the Green Events Hamburg network at a press conference on Wednesday.

Jens Kerstan, Hamburg’s Senator for Environment and Energy, commented, "The Rothenbaum tournament is an integral part of the sports city of Hamburg. We are very pleased that such a traditional and well-known event will take part in our pilot phase for sustainable events. This shows that tradition, sport, climate protection and sustainability go well together.”

Besides the ATP event, the Hamburg Triathlon, the Hamburg Cathedral, Christopher Street Day, the Reeperbahn Festival and the Dockville Festival will also be part of the project.

Tournament Director Sandra Reichel commented, "We want to take a pioneering role in climate protection worldwide on the ATP Tour, as there are still many things to do."

The tournament has already said that it will compensate for the CO2 emissions of all players flying into Hamburg by paying compensation to “tree projects” in the city. Also, the ATP 500 event only uses ecologically and fairly manufactured merchandise.

The Hamburg European Open is played on clay and while it used to be held in May earlier as a precursor to the French Open, it has been held in July since 2009.

While several big names, including Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, have won the tournament in the past, Georgia's Nikoloz Basilashvili has won the title the last two years - beating Russian Andrey Rublev in the 2019 final and Argentine Leonardo Mayer in the 2018 final.

from Tennis World USA https://ift.tt/2OO9m2c