ROLEX MONTE-CARLO MASTERS

April 16, 2023

David Massey

Press Conference

DAVID MASSEY: Thank you for being here. We had a record year for this tournament, more than 140,000 spectators. We don't have the final figure, of course, because we are waiting for the results of today, but we are very pleased with this result.

It's true for all sectors. If you look at the train arrivals in 2017, it was 22,000, and it was more than 23,000 yesterday. The train is a way of coming to the tournament. Even on Thursday the SNCF helped a lot, because people could arrive in the morning and leave in the evening without any problem.

Also, this is an exceptional year in all other sectors. The tournament decided to invest in social media. It's important for us. We need to reach as many people as we can. We had 30 times more viewership in the social media. Anyway, I'm very happy with this. We are happy with the quality. We are working with ATP Media. We are very pleased with their service.

We had some stats on arbitration. 75 referees and umpires were selected. The selection is extremely tough. We are very strict with quality. In those 75 people, anyone can be the umpire for the final. It's very difficult to choose the one who is going to umpire the final.

It's the same for ball kids. The quality also is there. Those children are spending the whole week with us, and it's very well managed by our team. 80 were selected, and once again, we were very happy with their quality.

This week we had only twice a problem with the weather, but we were able to keep the schedule every day, and we are ending this tournament with a beautiful day and sunshine for the final.

In 2024, ticketing will start on the Tuesday, 3rd of October. We see people like to buy ahead of time. We were sold out even before the tournament this year. We always keep a few tickets on-site for the last minute, but we had great success. You know the dates for 2024, which is 6 to 14 April, 2024.

The team worked really hard to develop the VIP Village and the LED panels on center court, and it was a great challenge for us that started immediately after the 2022 tournament.

I hope you were able to see the site. We are very pleased with what our partners and ourselves did. Once again, we tried to study every different sector and tried to improve every single sector. We are never happy with what we do. We want always to improve.

I would like to thank you warmly, you, the press, and all the teams, because in each sector we have people who have a lot of experience. Some of them have been working for more than 40 years in this tournament. It's really teamwork, and they have a lot of experience.

For the first time, we had a special control system for people coming in the stadium called Evolv. It was a good thing we had that, because we had a record number of spectators, so the flow was improved considerably this year without any compromise with security. The Monaco police helped us. We had good feedback on that.

I believe this tournament was the first event on the French Riviera and even on the whole of France using this system. But soon, in many other events, you will see the events using that Evolv system.

Once again, I would like to thank the Prefect of Nice and the Mayor of Roquebrune-Cap-Martin and the national police. It was a bit complicated this year because there are works in Roquebrune, and also in Monaco, people were working all week, of course, and the traffic was a bit difficult. So I would like to thank everyone for their patience for this week. With the national police, we were quite pleased with the help we got from them.

Now, of course, ahead of us is the final with two great players. You know better than I do all their career and results, but if you look at their head-to-head, you see that obviously the match is going to be very tight today.

Honestly, I just don't know who is going to win. I don't know if you have an idea, but I absolutely don't know myself. Both deserve to win.

Rublev was in 2021 in the final here. He has a lot of experience. Rune won the Bercy tournament. Both deserve to win this tournament, and we are hoping for a good final. We have to also mention the doubles final with a Monegasque player. This is exceptional. So I think we are going to have a good day.

If you have questions, I'll be very happy to answer in English, French, Spanish, but not Italian (smiling).

Q. You were talking about the enthusiasm of linesmen. You had 500 candidates. In the Djokovic match, there was apparently a mistake in the call. Now places sometimes use electronic systems on clay. Could we, in the future, see Monte-Carlo without linesmen and the electronic system?

DAVID MASSEY: We want to give priority to humans. I know ATP always wants to find the best system to avoid errors. On clay you can see the mark.

I know Madrid has been using Foxtenn for a long time. We are going to watch this and study this for the future. ATP might even impose this on us in the future, but for the time being, we are waiting and we are very satisfied with our human linesmen.

Q. Another question about the technology. We saw the LED panel. That was impressive, but Tsitsipas said it was not the first time he had that but sometimes it bothered him. Did he mention this to the management of the tournament?

DAVID MASSEY: No, not at all. We were very satisfied with the system. We can't say, because there are still two matches to go, but we are expecting there will be no mistake.

I think it's better for the matches that are played at night. The television image is a lot better with these panels.

Q. Yesterday was a difficult day because of the rain, and it's difficult also for the organizers, because all the people that were there didn't know where to go. The bar was tiny and crowded. What do you think you can do in the future if again something like that happens?

DAVID MASSEY: It's true that we don't have enough areas that are covered to protect the spectators. Well, it didn't rain very much this year, but if we have 15,000, 16,000 on-site, it's difficult to have everyone be covered.

So we have a project to try to improve that. But it's true that everybody stays in the stands and the restaurant, the boutiques were overcrowded yesterday and it was a bit difficult.

Another thing is that if we know there will be a long rain delay, we let people get out of the stadium and come back, because normally once you go out, it's final. You can't come back. But if we believe there will be a long pause, then we let them go out and come back.

The system existed already yesterday, but yesterday we knew the match was going to start very soon, so we didn't really use it. We keep that for situations when there will be several hours, for example, of rain delay, so people can go back to their hotels or go to Monaco and come back.

It's not automatic. It's a decision we have to make on one given day.

Q. I don't know if it's a coincidence, but the two best matches took place in the evening. I want to know what's going on in your mind. Do you think about a night session as all the other Masters 1000 do? I'm not saying I'm in favor of this, but I wonder what you think about it.

DAVID MASSEY: If we have to sell different tickets for the day or for the night, we can't do that, because with the parking issues and people coming in and out in Monaco and the crowd, it's not going to be possible.

What we could do is have "not before," we reflected on that, and we want to be fair for the players. We are, for the time being, having day sessions. We want the stands to be full 100%, so it's too early to say that we want a "not before," because, for example, if the matches, the previous matches end quickly, there is going to be a long time without any matches going on. It's not good for TV.

It's true that people, while working, when they come out of work, would benefit from a not-before 6:00 p.m., for example, but we are not going to do that for the time being. We can do it technically. We have the lights on the courts. So it is possible. But we didn't make this decision yet.

Thank you.