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MONTE-CARLO ROLEX MASTERS

April 23, 2017

Zeljko Franulovic

Monte Carlo, Monaco

ZELJKO FRANULOVIC: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this press conference for the end of the tournament. On behalf of the whole organizing team for the tournament, I would like to thank you once again for your loyalty.

I suggest we have a brief overview of this 2017 edition of our Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters, which kicks off the European season of world tennis, and is the first big international sports event on the Riviera.

It is now a tradition, the draw for the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters is organized in a place that is emblematic in the Principality. This time we were in the exceptional setting of the exotic garden of Monaco, in the presence of a defending champion, Rafael Nadal.

Then on the first Saturday of the tournament, the tournament was officially launched by a charity exhibition between eight top players, in an original format. This was organized for the benefit of AMADE, which is The World Association of the Friends of Children, chaired by Her Royal Highness, Princess Caroline of Hannover.

I would like to take this opportunity to warmly thank the eight champions that took part, and all the players for their loyalty and commitment to our tournament. So thanks to those players.

This 2017 edition once again benefited from an exceptional draw with the presence of all the top players, like No. 1 Murray, No. 2 Djokovic, No. 3 Wawrinka, and all the other players. We had also ideal weather conditions.

Every day we were lucky to have very high-level matches, for the great pleasure of the spectators who came in great numbers this year from the first days of the tournament on, and on all the courts.

Before the tournament, the ticketing office said we would be able to play with all the tickets sold from Tuesday to Sunday. Very quickly they were able to tell us that we would be sold out from the Monday on to the Sunday, for all five courts. This is a first for us.

Now I'm going to give you some figures.

The total number of spectators this year was 135,809. There were 96 buses chartered by the tennis clubs for the one day of Tuesday. This is a record, as well.

Also I would like to thank you because, like every year, you came in great numbers to cover our tournament. This year you were 453 accredited journalists, representing 18 countries.

Before talking about this 100% Spanish final, I would like to congratulate our Monagasque doubles team, Romain Arneodo and Hugo Nys, for the excellent tournament they played this year. These are two players from the training camp of the Monagasque Federation of Tennis.

Let us now turn to the final that will be kicking off at 2:30. It will be a final between two clay-courters, between the defending champion, Rafael Nadal, who will try for a 10th victory here in Monte-Carlo, and Albert Ramos-Vinolas, a Spanish player, who is now experiencing the best moment of his career at 29 years old.

I will give the floor to our referee, Stephane. I thank him for the organization of the press tournament, sponsored by Sergio Tacchini, who generously offered to all the participants, 26 of them, a full complete set of tennis gear.

Also I would like to make an appointment with you for the next edition, the 112th edition of the Monte-Carlo Rolex Masters, which will take from the 14th to the 22nd of April, 2018.

While we are waiting for the referee, I am here to take your questions.

Q. Just for clarification, we had a complaint from the Italian fans. On Monday they had to stand for 1 hour 30 minutes on the stairs, under the stand, on court nine. It was too small to have them enter. They wanted to watch Lorenzi. At the same time on Court No. 2, Struff and Ruud, a German and a Norwegian.
ZELJKO FRANULOVIC: Your question is justified. But you have to know that if there is someone here who takes care of the Italian team and the Italian fans, it is us. We know there wouldn't be 8,000 people wanting to watch a German player.

The problem is that with the ATP, we need to follow some rules for the scheduling on the courts. This is not an exact science. We have to make sure we will not give an advantage to one player as opposed to another.

I'm sure if Struff had played late or had to play early, anyway, something happened, and we couldn't schedule him otherwise. So the reason for this was that there was no possibility to do otherwise, or there was a delay, or something.

Believe me, in good faith, we try the best we can for the Italian spectators.

Q. You talked about ticketing and the good figures. Have you now reached your maximum? How can you improve the attendance even more?
ZELJKO FRANULOVIC: We can't increase the number of spectators a lot. What we are working on is improving the comfort of the players. We do that every year. We have a new gym that will be included in the new building that is planned. But we don't want to grow too much because we might lose our soul. This is something special we have here, that we are proud of.

As you know, we have temporary stands, and it doesn't matter if we lose a thousand seats. What we want to focus on is to keep improving the details and the comfort for everyone.

Q. Are you surprised with this final between Ramos-Vinolas and Nadal?
ZELJKO FRANULOVIC: As a former tennis player, nothing surprises me. I've been watching Ramos since the beginning of the attorney because he is the revelation of this tournament. He has a high quality of game. He hits hard. He beat very good players, like Murray, among others. What he's been doing in this tournament is extraordinary.

Q. You mentioned the new building. Can you give us more details?
ZELJKO FRANULOVIC: Ubaldo, you were waiting for me on this (laughter).

It will be going in the direction I was describing earlier, meaning we want to keep improving the comfort and the quality of our facilities. We can't improve the number of tickets sold by much, but we do want to improve our infrastructure.

This building has been planned for years. We wanted to maximize our facilities without jeopardizing free circulation of the public. Also we believe this interview room is a bit small. The players complain they have to go through the crowd to come here. We might put the interview room in that new building.

Secondly, we wanted to improve our facilities for TV production, for social media and computers and everything, they have more and more equipment, more and more cables. For the time being, they have to park their trucks outside.

Now we have planned a tunnel for them to park in a better place. They will have their TV compound. We will gain free access to the club and improve facilities for the press, the players and the TVs.

Q. Of course we understand you believe this room is a bit small, but we don't need a bigger room for the most part of the tournament. This interview room is characteristic of this tournament. It's something very special that doesn't exist elsewhere. We believe the ATP are spoiling their players. They just have to walk up here. If we go to the new building, we'll have to go through the crowd several times a day.
ZELJKO FRANULOVIC: We will try to make sure we change things for the better. We can do what we want, and we are in no hurry.

One thing we can't change is the tunnel. We were congratulated by the TVs and so on for what we did there.

In the end, it is tournament committee who makes the decisions. We'll see what is best for everyone.

Q. There has been a problem, especially for the crowd, to park their cars. There are very few parking spaces. Are you going to improve that?
ZELJKO FRANULOVIC: I believe this year was the worst because of all the works going on. Soon the new construction will offer one thousand spaces more in a building called Testimonio.

We tried this year to improve the situation by opening up the one-way street below the club that had become a one owe way street because of the works.

Q. Several matches lasted very late at night. Did you think about changing the rules, like having no let or no ad? As a former player, what do you think?
ZELJKO FRANULOVIC: Every sport needs to evolve. But with tennis, we must be careful. There's a saying, You shouldn't put clothes on Paul by taking away the clothes of Jacques. So we must be certain the changes will be beneficial.

About the rules, it's up to the ATP. They have hours of meetings on those matters.

There are also some easy changes which can be made which are not the no let and no ad, which is the heart of the game, but that can save time. When the players change sides with their towel and everything, it takes time, and we can reduce that. It's bad for TV and people watching on iPads. They turn to something else if it's too long.

Q. For this interview room, we could use it for the first five or six days and only go to the new building for the last day of the final, with two players only having to go there. Or would it be too difficult?
ZELJKO FRANULOVIC: We can study this proposal. We are listening to what the media and players have to say. We will choose the best solution for everybody.

Q. We still have the problem for the photographers and the TVs. Could we have the roof of this building converted into a terrace, like it has been done at the French Open?
ZELJKO FRANULOVIC: Maybe it's a good idea, but here is a tennis club. We are not the owners. There are also many laws when you try to renovate an existing building by the sea. I believe it's almost forbidden to change this building.

In the club, the tournament committee comes only second concerning this type of decision.

Q. Will the fitness center be in the new building?
ZELJKO FRANULOVIC: The new fitness center we provided is an absolute success with the players. We had a very small one before. Now it's large, well-equipped. It's adjacent to their facilities. We are not going to change that, except for adding new machines, according to their requests. But so far it has been a hit among the players.

Thank you.

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