Roland Garros

General Background

Roland Garros is also called as the French Open. This is a big tennis tournament what is held over two weeks on late May and early June in the stadium Roland Garros in Paris. Roland Garros is played on clay court. So it is the biggest tennis championship on clay court in the world and the second tournament of the four annual Grand Slam tournaments.

Roland Garros has five major events, namely:

·       Men´s singles

·       Women´s singles

·       Men´s doubles

·       Women´s doubles

·      Mixed doubles

Media

Different types of media have the rights to broadcast the tournament[1]. In Europe have the most of the right in different countries of Europe in Eurosport. They sent on this channel all the matches, so everyone in Europe can follow it on Eurosport. Also some countries have bought the right for their own public channel. For example the Netherlands. They broadcast in on the Dutch TV on NOS, but also the Dutch watcher can watch the matches on Eurosport. In the United States have also more channels bought the right of the tournament. So you can watch their the matches to on different channels.

You can also follow the Roland Garros tournament on different social media apps. The organisation is very active on social media. For example on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube.

Sponsors

The biggest sponsor on the tournament of Roland Garros is their main partner, namely: BNP Paribas[2]. This is a world bank company. But they have more official sponsors as Lacoste, Emirates, Engie, FedEx, IBM, Longines, Perrier and Peugeot. These official suppliers provide goods and services, which are both important for making the tournament to a successful one.

Players

The Champions of last year 2015 were the following big names. By the men´s single it was Stan Wawrinka. This was his first Grand Slam title by Roland Garros. Serena Williams was the big champion by the women´s single. This was her 20^th Grand Slam title and her 3th Roland Garros title. The price money for winning the Roland Garros in the single was €1.800.000.

Stadium

The stadium of Roland Garros is in Paris. The stadion is built in 1928. On the area of the stadion there are 20 tenniscourts and 3 big stadions. In the biggest stadion, where they play the finals, there will be fit 15.000 people.

On this picture[3] is an overview of all the tennis courts in the area of Roland Garros.

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[1] http://www.rolandgarros.com/en_FR/content/the_tournament/info/broadcasters.html

[2] http://www.rolandgarros.com/en_FR/search/index.html?query=sponsors

[3] http://www.rolandgarros.com/en_FR/content/stadium_info/access_to_the_stadium.html

Preview: The US Open

In the next blog we will talk about the first Grand Slam: The U.S. Open. 

Here is some basic information:

• The U.S Open is the largest annually attended sporting event in the world. 
• There are watching more than 700.000 fans in the stadium and has ticket revenue of $100 million. 

Source: http://usopenlivestreamingx.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/US-Open-2015-Live-Streaming.jpg?cc47a6

• The total revenue for this event is $253 million in 2013. 
• This comes from tickets, sponsors, media and concessions.
• They expect the revenues to increase thanks to a renovation of the Billie Jean King National Tennis Centre and a new TV deal[2]. 

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[2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2015/09/10/business-is-booming-at-the-u-s-open/

Introduction to Tennis Business

The elite tennis players can earn a lot of money out of the price money and sponsors. The world’s highest-paid tennis players of 2015 are Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, Kei Nishikory, and Andy Murray. While Djokovic is now the number one player of the world, Federer is the person with the highest salary of all tennis players with $67 million. His victories helps him to generate more money from endorsements than any other athlete in the world. After him comes Djokovic with $48,2 million and Nadal with $32,5 million. 

For the woman Sharapova has the highest salary with $29,7 million and Serena Williams with $24,6 million.

Source: http://www.businessbanter.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Creating-Business-Energy-Tennis-e1358339829864.jpg

In addition to the winnings on the court of the elite players, they are magnets for rich endorsement deals[1]. 

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[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/kurtbadenhausen/2015/08/31/federer-djokovic-lead-the-2015-list-of-highest-paid-tennis-players/

Top Players

Before we start talking about the Grand Slams, we want to get to know the player better. 

Source: https://thenypost.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/federere.jpg
Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer after playing a match.

The Big Three are Roger Federer (34), Rafael Nadal (29) and Novak Djokovic (28). They have won 39 of the 47 Grand Slam events since 2004. Last year’s U.S. Open was the first Grand Slam final without the Big Three since 2005. 

Source: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Sport/Pix/pictures/2014/8/26/1409041114290/Novak-Djokovic-014.jpg
Novak Djokovic playing the 2014 US Open

Tennis: General Information

Tennis is a sport that is played worldwide. It can be played in two settings: with two players (single match) or four players (double match). The equipment required for includes a specific  tennis racket and a small yellow ball. In the field there are some lines and you have to play the between the lines. Tennis is played in a court which is divided in two parts divided by a net. In order to play the sport, you need to hit the ball with a racket to the other side of the of the net within the other player’s marked court. The ideal strategy is to hit the ball to the other side of the net in a spot that your competitor won´t be able to hit it back to your side of the court. Tennis is competitive sport that determines a winner through points. You can play tennis on different courts such as gravel, grass or a hardcourt field. The US Open and the Australian Open are played on a hardcourt field.

Source: http://www.valenciatennisacademy.com/ita/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/federer_gran_willy__puntodebreak.jpg
Roger Federer performing a "Willy" 

The sport of tennis can played on all the of knowledge levels found in local tennis clubs ol worldwide tournaments that demonstrate skill and dedication. Some matches take a lot of time since a match is won when any player wins two out of three sets. Each Set is won when a player wins at least six non-consecutive match points. Each of the match points per set have to be won by a difference of 2 games. Traditionally, there is a gender-specific way in which the sets are won, men aim towards winning 3 sets while women play for 2 winning sets. There are different ways of holding the hands on the racket namely, forehand, backhand, topspin, dropshot, smash, volley and many more. The forehand is the most common. You have you right or your left hand on the racket and hit the ball across. In the backhand , you have to hold the racket with both hands and then hit the ball  across in the opposite way of the forehand. For the topspin, you can play with your forehand and backhand; in this shot,  the ball is hit in such fashion that it spins  around on its angle so that the competitor cannot hit the ball back. The dropshot is a tricky hit on the ball, in which the ball is hit across the court so that the competitor will have to go to the ground and run fast to hit the ball back. The smash shot is performed when the ball is hit across the court without having a bounce on the court and hit the ball back. 

Blog Introduction

Welcome readers to our blog! 

We are Charlotte Becker, Pepe Seger, Jonathan Langford and Cecilia Sanders. 

In this blog we want to inform your more about our topic: Tennis. Furthermore, we will explain additional knowledge of tennis and especially focus on the business aspect of the sport at hand. There are four big grand slam tournaments each year in tennis: Roland Gaross, Australian Open, Wimbledon and US open. In the following weeks we will discuss each grand of these tournaments. Furthermore, we will explain the business aspect of each competition. We sincerely hope that you will enjoy our blog!! Should you have any question our you want additional information about a specific topic, feel free to add a comment!!

Source: http://www.totalsportek.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Highest-Prize-Money-in-Tennis-Grand-Slams.jpg