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ROGERS CUP MENAugust 10, 2014Karl HaleTORONTO, ONTARIO SARAH GROSSMAN: Karl has an opening statement, and then he'll take questions. KARL HALE: I'll be very brief. We're very thrilled about the 2014 Rogers Cup. We started on Saturday with great crowds, and on Sunday we had the ball hockey game with Roger Federer playing and a lot of the hockey players there, Jason Spezza, Phil Kessel. And Monday opening day was sold out. It just continued throughout the week with fantastic matches, great electric crowds. Players love the city and were engaged all about the city. So it was just a fantastic Rogers Cup, and we're just thrilled. Q. Are you happy with the people coming to the finals, the two players? KARL HALE: We're always happy to have finalists (laughter). Q. I mean, we have more people coming to watch the game, sold out the game, like last year? KARL HALE: Yeah, Roger's obviously a fan favorite. We are happy about that. Jo‑Wilfried is coming back from kind of a slump in his rankings. We're excited about that. Two fan favorites. It's great to have them in the finals. Q. What influence has Milos Raonic had on the ticket sales and general feel of the tournament this year? KARL HALE: Obviously Milos has been in the news a tremendous amount the past couple of months, had a tremendous impact on sales. He's a Canadian hero, an icon here, so he had a tremendous influence on ticket sales this week. Q. At the beginning of the week you mentioned there was potential there might be records broken for sales this year. Do you know if that happened, or are you still tallying numbers? KARL HALE: We are still tallying numbers. We had a very, very successful event. We are very, very happy with the numbers we achieved, so we are just waiting for the finals to be completed today and we will have a final tally. Q. Does the date of the Rogers Cup, has it ever been a debate whether or not it would move? I know the placement of Cincinnati is a little more ideal even closer to the US Open.  What do you feel about the date of the tournament, and is it where you'd like it? Would you like it later? KARL HALE: We're very happy with the date. We have always great player fields dictated today by having Roger and Jo in the finals. We talk with the tours about the different weeks, but week 33 is a great date for us. Q. Given how big a deal Canadian tennis is, given the fact that Canadians didn't do as well as hoped, is there any disappointment on your part? KARL HALE: I'm really happy you're asking that question, because how soon we forget. Five years ago you wouldn't be asking that question. It's great that we have these Canadians that are doing so well on the global scale. They had a good tournament. They had some tough draws. The matches they played were great matches, and this is one of the toughest tournaments in the year. It could have been better, but it's a tough tournament. Q. Last year was maybe a different dynamic with Eugenie and Milos kind of on their way up, whereas this year it felt like from the get‑go they were two legitimate stars. Has it sort of like changed the way I guess you can approach from a marketing standpoint and that sort of thing maybe going forward when you've got two stars now that have kind of solidified their status? KARL HALE: Absolutely. When I talk to ‑‑ I will go around the grounds, so we have fans coming from all over talking about Milos in Toronto here to see him play. The two players are very young, Milos and Eugenie. I tell everybody the best is yet to come for the two of them at 23 and 20 years old. They have a bright future which will also help our tournament and our Davis Cup and Fed Cup in the future, so we are really, really excited about that. Q. How can the tournament improve for next year? KARL HALE: You know, we walked the grounds today, a team of us, to look at the site, different types of things we can do to improve the site for the fans. Then we do a survey also with the fans to see what they would like, and we regroup in about a month and we go over all the different things we can improve. We did some improvements this year behind the practice courts. You know, we had the Art of Tennis theme, the hockey game, those type of things that were real successes. We will look at what we can do in the future and add some different things. Q. In the years since you have taken over as tournament director, what changes or progress are you most proud of accomplishing during that time span? KARL HALE: Well, I think as far as accomplishing, I just think I'm really happy as a tennis person. I have been a tennis person my whole life. We always wished about having stars that are Canadian, so to see the crowds when the Canadians are playing on centre court, with Milos the other night, getting behind him and showing our true patriotic spirit, that's what makes me really excited to run the tournament. Q. The schedule, next time the men are here two years from now, the Rio Olympics are running August 5th to 21st, I think, what does that mean for the Rogers Cup? KARL HALE: Well, obviously we weren't happy with the Olympic date two years ago, so we are working with the tours and the ITF to make it much more beneficial to our tournaments, which we will do for sure. When it comes out I think everybody will be happy with the new dates once it's finalized. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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