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ROGERS CUP MEN

August 14, 2011

Eugene Lapierre

MONTREAL, QUEBEC

THE MODERATOR: We'll start with tournament director Eugene Lapierre.

Q. I'm wondering what the advantage is to the fan of having to choose between seeing the men in person and the women in person? What is the advantage of the fans of having both tournaments happening at the same time?
EUGENE LAPIERRE: Well, the advantage, they can still see them. That's the thing. You mean on television?

Q. If I'm a fan and I want to see them both in person.
EUGENE LAPIERRE: This we surveyed under our clientele. It was under point one percent that would have done exactly what you're saying. So it doesn't have an impact. It's too bad for those few people that would have spent one week in MontrÃ©al, one week in Toronto. It doesn't happen. They still can do that part of the week there, part of the week in Toronto if they so choose to do that.
On television we offer just about the same number of hours total in one week than what we were offering in two weeks. So you just have a week concentrated of tennis on television instead of scattering it out on two weeks in the past.

Q. On the state of the game. We had a few Canadians in the draw this week. If you look at small countries like Serbia, many more players. Do you feel like the training facilities, the number of people playing, we have enough men at the top of the game?
EUGENE LAPIERRE: You mention one thing that I think it's normal that we don't have many players because of the number of people playing the game. That's key. The number of people playing the game, the number of kids playing the game, is not sufficient compared to many, many countries in Europe.
I'll tell this anecdote. Back in the times of Sweden, the names of Borg, Edberg, these guys in Sweden, I was the technical director here in QuÃ©bec. I got the technical director from Sweden to come down. I asked the question, How many kids do you have when you do the Sweden national championship 12 and under? Sweden is comparable to the size of QuÃ©bec. When I was doing a championship of 12 and under, I was happy to have 50 people. Happy to have 80 kids playing in the 12 and under. He told me 12,000.
This is the difference. If we can give accessibility to playing the game to the young kids, not even 12 and under, but five, six, seven, eight, go into the schools, go into the parks, give them access. The only way you can play tennis 12 months here is if you are rich, you can access private facilities. There are no indoor public facilities.
It's our job to create that need so that people go see the municipalities. You have swimming pools, hockey arenas, this and that. Now we want to play tennis. We're not there yet.
So your question will need a very long answer. But we're getting there. We're getting there with this National Tennis Centre, with Milos, who unfortunately was not playing this week. Rebecca Marino, Philippe Pourreaux, Virginie Bouchard, the Abanda sisters, many more to come hopefully. That's our business. That's what we're doing.

Q. Do you have any long-term plans for the development of the tournament? This week was the world record for spectators. You've been counting the people to see the draw. There's only so many sessions you can make up in a week. If you want to grow, you will have to think about something bigger.
EUGENE LAPIERRE: Yes. The long-term for us, this is a very successful tournament as it is now. The way to increase it on the site has its limitations. To us the reason why we're doing the tournament, of course it's to promote the game, of course it's to put up a good show, but it's to bring dollars to help us do our job.
To bring those dollars, the next step is going to be the TV rights. Like it or not, this is what it is. The world is becoming global, so we need to sell our game globally. We've done that with the men since the Masters in 2000. Now it's blossoming. The men's game is selling itself more and more. It's because we came as a package and that's what we sell out there.
We hope we'll be able to do this with the women's game as well. I say 'we', I'm Tennis Canada, I can't decide that, but I hope between both circuits it will come to that so we put our game up front, our athletes up front, give them better visibility, and therefore better revenues. That's the way to increase to me the visibility of the event here and to make it just a bigger international event altogether.

Q. You had Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal knocked off in the first match, Roger Federer in the second match. How worried were you? Were you cheering for Novak for carrying the tournament on his back?
EUGENE LAPIERRE: It's not too hard to cheer for Novak. He seems to be very hard to beat.
There's one thing we don't control: the results of the matches on the court. We had five of the top eight seeds in the quarters. Two years ago we had eight of the first eight players in the world. So you'll have tournaments like that where the seeds may not go the distance. That happens to all the tournaments. Next time it may not be the case. So we'll see.
Everybody wishes for Nadal and Federer to do good in their tournament, that's for sure. That just cannot happen all the time. The fact is, well, we had a good week. It tells me that the show is there. It's a good show out there. With Federer, with the guy who beat Federer, it's a good show all the same. So I have faith in the sport.
THE MODERATOR: Questions in French.

Q. Can you give us the general results of the tournament this year. Have you beat the record of attendance?
EUGENE LAPIERRE: We are very satisfied with the tournament this year, with the new things we have put into place. We indeed beat the attendance record which gives us more revenue to help us achieve our work the rest of the year.
We are promoting tennis by integrating tennis in schools and in parks and, among other things, trying to improve competition for younger players who will be the next best players of the future.
We need to create a proper structure for learning tennis because the younger players will be the Raonic's of tomorrow. We are extremely satisfied with this tournament.

Q. What have been the results of this combined experiment?
EUGENE LAPIERRE: This gave the possibility of seeing more matches. I didn't have time to watch much television, but I know it was very pleasant to see and the experience was comparable to a Grand Slam tournament because it was possible to see men and women players at the same time. The best players in tennis were more visible.

Q. Have you had any technical difficulties to combine both sites?
EUGENE LAPIERRE: Not more than planned. The main thing was to have a good access to the Toronto tournament from here and to give Toronto good access to the MontrÃ©al tournament.
You are, by the way, directly involved, and we will listen to your comments to know whether we should make new improvements. But the general scheme has worked well.

Q. Can't television be detrimental to the spectators either here or in Toronto?
EUGENE LAPIERRE: I don't see how that is possible. The crowd and television are sharing the same interests. This week, having Federer and Djokovic playing at the same time, was in the interest of no one, neither the public nor television. Everybody agreed on that.

Q. Did you think about the impact that the Olympic Games might have on next year's tournament?
EUGENE LAPIERRE: We've been planning for that a long time ago. In advance, we talked to the WTA to ask for a number of things. First we requested to be able to start on the Thursday in order to end the tournament on the following Monday. This means an extra day. Then we also requested to have a smaller draw with 48 players instead of 56. Those two changes will considerably improve our tournament because the women players finishing their competition in London on grass on the Saturday will be able to come here and have time to overcome the jetlag problem and to practice on hard courts before starting this competition. This is especially true for the players having a bye in our tournament.
Those solutions will help us have a lot better participation of the top players.

Q. What has been the best moment of the tournament for you, the highlight of the tournament?
EUGENE LAPIERRE: That question always ends up being asked and I'm not prepared (smiling).
There have been several highlights and important moments in this tournament. But the one I will mention here is the first day. We had thought for a long time already to open the site one day earlier. We did it this year. It worked really well. This is exactly in line with what we wanted to do because this tournament is the great opportunity we have to promote our sport. It is the best window to show the top players.
Of course, we didn't have a lot of money to do the advertisement campaign, but the reactions were very good, and many players came early to come and practice on that day. That was a success.

Q. Can you talk about next year's tournament. Aren't you afraid that the women's competition will be less attractive?
EUGENE LAPIERRE: Do you mean that people might stay home to see more tennis and more matches?
Well, this might be the case for a certain number of people, but not many. It will not have a major impact. As you've seen today, seeing tennis live is a totally different experience. It is a true event. You go there with your guests and your family not only to watch tennis but also to have a meal and have fun. So it's not comparable with the television experience.
The MontrÃ©al tournament is also the only tournament having as much success with the women's competition as with the men's competition. So both tournaments are comparable.

Q. Do we have to have this schedule with a 5:30 match? We are forced to rush to be in time. Can we hope that Toronto will have that particular timing for next year?
EUGENE LAPIERRE: No, it is not possible for several reasons. This decision has been made because the evening schedule before was weaker than the day schedule. With the new schedule, we are sure to be able to offer two matches in the evening.
This week, for example, it happened that Nadal had to play at 7:30, and he did play a very long match, which means that there was nobody left to watch Fish's match. This type of situation can destroy our tournament because then the top players have to play very late and the stadium is empty.
Thanks to the new schedule, we are now able to offer an extra match every evening. People will get used to come a bit earlier. We will try not to schedule the best match at 5:30. The 12:00 match also is not a match where there are many people generally. But at the end of the match the stadium is full.

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