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ROGERS CUP

August 13, 2017

Eugene Lapierre

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

THE MODERATOR: Questions in English.

Q. When Federer had his opening match on Wednesday, I heard someone on the radio, people had to wait a very long time at security to get in. Since Federer took only 50 something minutes to finish, they missed almost the entire match. I was wondering if you think this is a problem, if you're aware of it, something that you've addressed?
EUGENE LAPIERRE: I was aware of it when it happened. It's a situation that does happen now and again, not only on the men's side. Not very often actually, because most of the time it's the other way around. It's not too early, it's just too late.

It's something that we try to work with the tours. But at some point when a guy like Federer says, Okay, I'm ready, I'm going.

Stop, no, don't go or something.

It's very difficult. This was very unfortunate. Of course, we're going to work with the tours for it not to happen again.

Q. Meaning that you will ask for Federer to play later?
EUGENE LAPIERRE: No. I thought you're talking about the time that it took to come here.

Q. No, not the time it took to come here. People that were trying to get in, people with tickets, they had to wait almost an hour.
EUGENE LAPIERRE: The first match?

Q. Yes, the first match, Wednesday.
EUGENE LAPIERRE: I did not get that. I thought it was, like, at the press interview here.

Yes, it's something that we've been working on because we had that same problem last year. Just certain occurrences. Last year, it was the Eugenie Bouchard match on the Tuesday. It's when a lot of people are not used to come around here, no parking, just about inexistent [sic] parking. Now the security measures we have need a lot of time, bag searching, metal detector and everything. It takes some time.

The people that come here and think they're going to enter in 10 minutes. Oh, the match is at 6:30. Let's go, it's 6:00. It's not going to happen.

We've tried to educate the crowd. You come early, you have to come early. That's part of it, because it doesn't happen during the week. It's not because the guys don't do a good job. We have people at the subway station there advising people what entrance to use, what entrance will be the quickest. We have four entrances. We don't want everyone to clog the one specifically. We have people on the grounds saying, Go to the other lineup, it's less.

It did happen the first very busy day last year. It happened this very busy day. Then it didn't happen afterwards. I think it's a question of education.

Same thing happened to me when I went to a hockey game, when they started to have these things. How long is it going to take before we get in?

Now people know. We're going to go a little bit earlier. That's the times we live in, I'm afraid.

Q. What was the key to the attendance this week? Why do you think you were able to set the world record?
EUGENE LAPIERRE: Yes, I say often when we put up a tournament, there's two things we don't control: it's the presence of the players, the results of the players, and the weather. Those things are a roll of the dice.

We had a very good fight between the kids and those experienced players, Nadal and Federer. On one side, the experienced prevailed. On the other side, we have a kid who is going to have a huge career in the final. It's a good story.

Then you had this Canadian player that we thought would just like have a good experience in this event. 18 years old, we give you a wild card, gain experience, then you'll go up the ranking a little bit. Now he's made the story of the event. How can you go wrong with something like that? This is great.

It was just about a perfect week.

Q. In terms of square footage, I believe this is probably the smallest of the Masters 1000s tournaments.
EUGENE LAPIERRE: Oh, Monte-Carlo. Rome.

Q. I think Rome is slightly bigger. I don't have the figures.
EUGENE LAPIERRE: It would be close. Certainly we're bigger than Toronto (smiling).

Q. You have the highest number of people, apart from the combined ones, which is a bit different. Have you been looking at trying to expand, trying to get a bit of land from the city of Montreal, from the park, see what you can do to grow the tournament?
EUGENE LAPIERRE: We haven't gotten to ask more space in the park. That's a huge ask. I think it's somehow comparable with Roland Garros and their situation where they had a greenhouse. They finally were able to. But it was a very big discussion with the citizens, the neighbors and everything.

We're in a park. We have to live with that. We don't want to take more space in the park. What we see is that they tell us we can hold about 25,000 people on this site, which is maximum capacity. Our stadium is 12,000, a little bit under. We have 2,500 paid seats, maybe 4,500 altogether on the other court, Banque Nationale Court. Even with everybody servicing the tournament, we're far from full capacity.

I don't think we need a bigger stadium. We'll not create more seating. I think 12,000 is pretty much ideal for tennis. Our stadium is intimate. It's nice. The players love it. I was surprised when Federer was talking about our stadium, being one of the best stadiums in tennis.

Okay, good.

I happen to agree with him because we've seen the stadiums where the seating goes wide, like the US Open, Miami. Suddenly you're in the 15th row. Wow, see that player over there. There's not a bad seat in the place. So we're happy with that. We'll stay like this.

It would be like saying we're full all week long, perfect. Mr. Lapierre, will you want to have more seats? Do you ask Jeff Molson if he wants more seats? He's full every game. Why wouldn't he want more seats?

At some point it's good, you have it. It creates scarcity. It's great for the game as it is. So I think we have a good-sized venue. The players and the ATP, I was talking to them and everything. They love the fact that it's in a park. If we move, where are we going to go? In an industrial area probably, somewhere. It would cost much, much more.

I can't predict the future, but maybe it's not something we'll be thinking about now. Maybe something comes out 10, 15, 20 years from now. Okay, now this is an old stadium, let's do something about it. But for the time being, I think it has a lot of years ahead to hold one of the top events in the world.

Q. Montreal tends to be a bit of an event city in the summer. Everyone is a passionate fan for a week. A week later they drop it and move on to something else. How do you maintain that passion and interest in the casual fan year-round so they come back next year?
EUGENE LAPIERRE: It's good what you say because it's a little bit what I was answering at first. When we started the tournament, we were not considered one of the main events in Montreal. There was the Formula One race, there was a Jazz festival, and tennis was, yeah, just tennis. Now we're a major event.

The way we built it is by selling the product. I mean, the tennis is great. The more people that come to see it, the more they realize, Yes.

We're going to try to improve the fan experience, if you may. Tennis is different from other events. It's a very peculiar outing, if you will. You're going to have folks coming here, and when we ask, How long have you spent on-site? The average is six hours, five and a half hours, the duration of their stay on-site. Probably a lot of people will stay for both sessions. Some just stay for one session.

We know what they do when they come on-site. They're not going to sit right away. They'll visit here, have a drink here, we'll come back here later. They see a match, see a guy practicing, have a drink, have a meal. Finally, let's go back home. It's not like going to a theater play, to a Montreal Canadiens game. It's a very unique outing.

What do we do? We take exactly that route that the fans are doing and we try to improve it. We try to improve on what they're going to eat, the activities they're going to have in this area, this other area, practice courts. We do a better job of advertising ahead of time who's practicing when and everything.

There's a lot to do. And that is the part we're trying to improve every time. We've made changes that I cannot even tell you exactly what changes the group did on the site. But everybody comes to the site this year and says, Wow, this is nice. What have you done?

I don't even know what we've done. But my team did a very good job, like, displaying things differently. It looks more nice. It's open. It's good. That type of thing we're working on.

One thing we can't work on is parking. It's going down. There's less and less parking. We're going to have to educate people. Well, please, don't use your car. Don't create yourself problems. Use the subway, your bike. Put your bike on the car and park a mile away and ride in. There's many different ways not to use your car to come here.

It's not going to go up. It's going to go down.

THE MODERATOR: Questions in French, please.

Q. A new record of attendance. As a tournament director, this week was beyond expectations?
EUGENE LAPIERRE: Yes. But we never know exactly how things are going to turn out. In the beginning of the week, we put everything in place. This is what is amusing in sport. Things happen as they happen. There are beautiful stories that happen.

But this time we were able to provide what people were expecting. In the beginning of the week, we were dreaming of a final Nadal-Federer. But we also were talking about a clash of generations in the draw. On one side of the draw, experience prevailed with Roger. On the other side of the draw, the future of tennis prevailed. Now we will have this clash of generations in the final.

So, yes, the roll of the dice was good this week. When we organized the tournament, we had a lot of fun with my great team, but there are things we can't control: the players, the results and the weather. This time everything worked out well. We are very happy.

Q. Regarding the ticket sales, what was Federer's contribution, and what was Denis' share in the increase in sales?
EUGENE LAPIERRE: Both have contributed. It's difficult to say how. The presales were quite high already. We were keeping approximately 8% of the week's sales for the tournament week. We were at 93% of our goal. But we did a lot more. Maybe 15% more for the whole tournament during the week. That was due to Federer and Shapovalov.

In each session where one or the other were playing, the stadium was sold out. It means that 500 or 600 tickets were sold because of their presence. Of course, when we are sold out, it's good for the attendance and the revenues.

Q. 15%, what do you mean?
EUGENE LAPIERRE: We were thinking of 14.1 million sales, and we were able to sell 15 million. We are beyond the forecast. It's good for tennis. This is what we do. It's our job. We give everything back to the sport. This is for the young kids who are asking for autographs. After that, they will be able to go to the clubs and even be part of the national center of training. This is what we do all year long.

The tournament is not a final goal. The tournament is a means to an end for us to develop tennis. This is what we do the rest of the year. We are promoting tennis all year round.

Q. This year you broke the record of 2011, which was an exceptional year. Did you ever think you could break that record?
EUGENE LAPIERRE: We knew it would be very difficult to break that record. In 2011 we didn't have a single drop of rain, and we had the top eight players who were in the quarterfinals. Greg Sharko, who knows everything about tennis statistics, told me it never happened before. It never happened in tennis history. We checked, and it had never happened before, and it never happened after that. That was really an exceptional year.

We thought we would never reach 280,000 in attendance. The figures we reached this year will now be our benchmark for the future.

Q. What is the place of tennis in Montreal now? Here hockey is very important. Others are complaining they don't have enough space. What is the place of tennis in Montreal?
EUGENE LAPIERRE: We are very satisfied with our share. When we started the tournament in 1980, we didn't represent much. Players were coming here almost incognito. Year after year the tournament developed.

I remember the surveys we were doing at the time. They were saying that the crowd watching the matches during the tournament were composed of 98% tennis players. Like if in hockey, only the hockey players would go and watch.

Now the image has changed totally. Tennis has become a show. The tournament is more than a tennis tournament, it's an event. I met people here when I walk around who say it's the first time they've been here, and they don't play tennis, but they heard of it, of Federer, the young Canadian. They buy a ticket.

I wouldn't say that to my ATP friends, but tennis is not really good to be broadcast on TV. Of course, it's all right to see the pictures, but when you come on-site you see better the speed of the players, their strength. It's a great show.

We nurtured our tournament to become a show as great as Celine Dion, for example. More and more people understood that we're not doing this for ourselves, but instead for the purpose of helping young people to play tennis, because we know that's a sport they can do all their lives. Tennis can be played at five years old until 85 years old. People do that.

This is what we want. I like that feeling. Valerie and the members of the staff know that. Working here, we like to see Felix having lunch with us, because we know we are working for him.

When you're asking about the place of tennis, it's there. If Eugenie Bouchard does something in Asia, the media call me to have my opinion on what is happening, and that happens all year round. It shows that people are interested in tennis. This is unique for Montreal and Quebec, compared to the rest of Canada or the United States even. In the U.S. things don't happen like this.

Thanks to our tournament and our athletes, we were able to develop something that gives its own place to tennis here. The next step, of course, is having more young athletes, like in soccer. But we have obstacles of a social and economic nature. Some players don't play all year round. If we have young players who play only three or four months a year, that is not enough.

So this is what we're going to work on in the next years, with Michael Downey, we want to work on accessibility of tennis for greater numbers all year round.

Q. Many things happened this week. What are you most proud of?
EUGENE LAPIERRE: Of what we were just talking about: I'm proud of the show we put on altogether. The players are putting the show on on the court. And, the organization is putting things into place so it can happen.

Sometimes it doesn't work. This year there were many matches were people were totally thrilled in a full stadium of what was happening. After certain points, everybody was on their feet. This is what I'm proud of.

Collectively we were able to create such a good show.

Q. Out of curiosity, of course the weather was good this year, so it didn't help, but where are we now with the roof? Are you making progress?
EUGENE LAPIERRE: We are still studying the feasibility. That project can take many years. It's too early to give you precise figures. We are studying it closer and closer. It hope it's going to happen one day, but we are not ready yet.

Before the tournament I was saying, If it rains all week long, we will have ammunition. This is how it happened in the US Open. Five years in a row they had the final on a Monday. Immediately they had the funds to build the roof. Paris the same. Wimbledon also.

Of course, I didn't want the rain to come. But in time this is the way the future should be. When we talk among tournament directors, with the ATP, with the ITF, we know we are in competition with Formula One, basketball, soccer, baseball, or football in North America. How can we compete with those sports?

When we have a final like this afternoon which will have tens of millions of spectators in the world, if people turn on their TVs, mobile phones or tablets, they're told, Sorry, it's going to happen in two hours, in four hours, this takes away a lot of value to our product. This is what is going to drive the fact that we will have a roof.

We need a product that we should deliver on time. It's as simple as that. If we need a roof for that, we will have one.

Q. You know tennis well. Many people were watching Shapovalov this week. Many readers ask me, What are they going to do to make sure he will not do like Eugenie Bouchard, who was at the top and dropped again? What can we do?
EUGENE LAPIERRE: If we knew, we would do it. It happens in all sports. Hockey, too. Is it because of the pressure? Or the talent? Here we believe we have the talent. But I don't believe we can do much afterwards. The work beforehand has to be done. Once the work is done, and the person is a good person, and there is a solid foundation, this is what we can do.

Nobody is spared pressure. We just hope Denis will be able to deal with it. For the time being he's not in a position where he has to defend his results. That's the difficult part. Eugenie Bouchard became an international star beyond tennis even. She was everywhere on Internet, et cetera, in six months. For a 19-year-old, it's incredible. But it's not easy.

I believe this will not happen to Denis. I don't think he will be in Esquire or things like that. He will have a longer way to go before he makes it to the top maybe.

As to what you were asking, I have no idea what we could do. Apparently he has a team and parents and friends that are very good. I'm very happy to see how he gets along with Marty. So we are hoping it's going to work out well.

Q. Regarding the roof again, is it a matter of building the roof, finances?
EUGENE LAPIERRE: I can give you no precise figures yet. There are too many elements involved. Of course, we will need the support of infrastructure programs. Once we get that, we will be able to move forward.

Q. Regarding Eugenie Bouchard, we're not going to talk about her entourage, but did you understand what happened to her so it wouldn't happen to another young athlete like Felix or Denis?
EUGENE LAPIERRE: I answered already, saying that we can't know beforehand what will happen. Things happened just like that for Eugenie. She's very open about what happened to her. I'm not sure people listen to her. She is really saying very clearly what happened to her. She's very bright about it. She's still trying to overcome that. She's working hard.

Is the same thing going to happen to Denis or Felix in a few years? I hope not. But I'm not an expert. I just can't tell you what we could do to prevent it from happening.

Q. Does Tennis Canada have the power to do something?
EUGENE LAPIERRE: It's a good question because once they become professionals, we can't do anything any more. Of course, we continue to help them. We gave advice to Milos for a number of years. Eugenie made her own choices. She's working well with her coach. When he's not there, she comes back to her coach from the national center, Roberto, and everything goes well with him. We are having contact with them. We continue that relationship.

We also have Martin Laurendeau. But we can't tell them, You have to do this or that.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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