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COUPE ROGERSAugust 11, 2013Eugene LapierreMONTREAL, QUEBEC THE MODERATOR: Questions. Q. More than 200,000 spectators in a week. It's a great result, but it's 6% less than two years ago. EUGÈNE LAPIERRE: We've been asking ourselves the same question. It was even a bit more than that, 6, 7, 8 percent from January on. We cut it back a little bit this time. So, I don't know, maybe it's the economic situation. Maybe it's the Charbonneau Commission, I don't know. I think people were waiting at some point to see, okay, who is going to be playing. We had a couple of years with rain. We had that on the phone also, people saying, I'm not too sure, a bit of rain last year, we'll wait to see who's coming. On the women's side, sometimes they don't all come. They think maybe on the men's side they will not come. So many reasons. But in the end we have a great event. We have the world record, 213,000, over 200,000. Nobody comes close to that in a one‑week, one‑sex tournament. We're very proud of this week and we'll do better next time, I can tell you that. Q. You probably had the best semifinal lineup you could have possibly hoped for. Do you think the absence of Roger Federer played a part? EUGÈNE LAPIERRE: In getting that semifinal? It would have been a different situation. I don't know what shape he would have been in. He hasn't won so many matches lately. To me, it would have been a question if he reached the semifinal. A big task for him the way things went for him lately. I think it was a good choice that he didn't play. That being said, a tournament, it's like a story that you can uncover as you go, flip the pages. You don't know where it goes. But I wrote the script of that one. No, I didn't. I couldn't imagine anything like that (laughter). As you said, it was the best scenario we could have imagined for this week. We hope it's going to repeat itself in the future. Q. In 2015 the calendar is going to change, Wimbledon will be pushed back by a week. Is that going to affect the Canadian Open? EUGÈNE LAPIERRE: I don't think that the players can skip one Masters just because it's closer to Wimbledon suddenly. It's going to be tougher. I think the tournaments that will suffer will be Washington, Stanford, these others prior to us. For the top guys, they need the break after Wimbledon. The break is long enough after maybe three to four weeks. If they rest, it will be sufficient. It's not our choice. Don't worry. I would rather have it stay where it is. But I don't think the top players can afford skipping one Masters just because of that question. Q. But the week is going to stay the same? EUGÈNE LAPIERRE: Yes. There's no way around it. Otherwise we're right behind the US Open, so... That's it. Q. From the point of view of how the players feel about this tournament, not just any player, but Djokovic on Saturday saying the support here, to have 300 people watch him for a practice session, then for Nadal to say a standing ovation for a Canadian when he arrives on the court, the players thinking so much of Montréal, your thoughts on that. EUGÈNE LAPIERRE: The players, well, they seem to like it here. I don't know if they tell us that because they're here and they don't say different. But the ATP people, the officials, they don't have to lie. The guy this morning, the supervisor, give me a report. He said this is good, this is not. You know Tom Barnes? He's unbelievable. Anyway, he's good. I like him. But he's not going to give you anything. If something is good, it's good. He tells us. He says, The players like it here. You do everything good. Everybody is smiling. You have people in the stands, not a seat left. So they like it here. We work for that. We work for that. We're very happy. I don't think it would become something that makes a decision of a player coming here or not. That's right, the volunteers are nice, so I'll go play. It doesn't work that way. But it doesn't hurt. If one guy could skip one hard court, we were having the champagne drink with the team there, he told me that, I said, Who you play in Cincinnati? He said, I didn't look at the draw. I don't really like Cincinnati. Okay. Q. In terms of the early rounds of this event, the attendance for them, sometimes I watch Cincinnati and I see about nine people in the stands for early rounds. You seem to be able to bring people in for early rounds. What do you think the credit goes to there? EUGÈNE LAPIERRE: To the tennis fans around here, the Montréalers. They embrace it. They make this event. They make it an event. It's not just a tennis tournament, it's an event. You come here, you enjoy. You enjoy the matches, the practice, going around and seeing the fast serve contest, the mini tennis thing, whatever. Richard organizes all sorts of things on the grounds. People like it. We say, How much time do you spend on the grounds when you come? The average answer is six hours. Can you believe that? It's not your typical outing. It's not when you go out for a hockey game, theater, play. You go out to have fun, bring friends, family, stay for two sessions, I don't know. That was something. This is a good thing. We scanned the tickets. We said, How many scanned and how many were sold? There was a discrepancy we could not believe. Like last night, Nadal, we counted 9,000 scanned tickets. The place was packed. It's impossible. We couldn't understand it. There must have been 3,000 people from the afternoon that stayed at night so they couldn't get their night ticket scanned. That's the thing. Q. They went to both sessions? EUGÈNE LAPIERRE: Yeah. So, yeah, we have a very good crowd. A good mix of connoisseur, curious people, those coming for the first time. My sister comes here.  She's never hit a tennis ball in her life. She just likes it. The players are so good. I mean, it's an event. It's an event. THE MODERATOR: Questions in French. Q. Toronto was disappointed by their attendance this year. They had to take away some seats in the stadium. What are your expectations for next year here? EUGÈNE LAPIERRE: I had told them from the start that they had too many seats in there anyway. The success is often measured if the stadium is full. So if you have 20,000 people, which is a lot, but you have 40,000 seats available, it seems it's unsuccessful. It's a matter of marketing. With a more reasonable size of stadium, we can make it look good. We are talking with them and sharing ideas. Q. Every day this week a new record was broken with the Canadian players winning round after round. How were you able to attract as many people this year for the women's tournament next year? EUGÈNE LAPIERRE: Success breeds success. The success of this tournament made our sales for next year skyrocket. They were never as good as they are right now. We are, I believe, going to have Serena. There will be no Olympic Games in the meantime where she can walk on broken glass and get injured, so she should be here. That's why we did that little ad that you saw on the court. I spoke with her agent at Wimbledon. I asked him why she didn't come here more often, if there was something I should know. He was extremely surprised I should ask that. He said she probably didn't make the difference between Montréal and Toronto, so he totally agreed for her to come next year. Sharapova will come for sure. She was so upset she was sick last year. She likes it here. I believe we will have no problem with the top players. I also believe that Bouchard, who is improving a lot, can also create a lot of interest, and Wozniak might be able to play well after returning from her injury. She proved that her level of game is top 20, top 30, provided her shoulder heals. I believe with all this we'll be able to revive our women's event. Q. Are you thinking of returning to the older format with two weeks? How does this format work? EUGÈNE LAPIERRE: This new format for us hasn't changed anything. Maybe it changed a little bit for Toronto where the culture of women's tennis is not as strong as it is here. We got many calls from people from Toronto to come and watch the men's matches here. But as far as Montréal is concerned, this format hasn't changed anything. To know exactly, we should count every cent. So it's either two weeks has more impact because people talk about tennis for two weeks or else they talk about tennis during one week only but in the two main areas of tennis in Canada. Q. If you had to make a bet on the last four players in this tournament, would you have guessed who would be in the semifinals? EUGÈNE LAPIERRE: That would have been a wild guess. Nadal and Djokovic I could have anticipated. But the other two, especially Raonic, who hadn't had very good results lately, no. I had even canceled the living room that was supposed to be reserved for him for the whole tournament and had to find him a new one when he got to the final. So that's for Milos. And Pospisil really impressed us here. I had seen him in Wimbledon play pretty well against Gicquel and Youzhny. He has gained confidence. Now there is a rivalry between those two players. Yesterday we can say we had two finals, one for Canada and one international final. After that, I was afraid Milos would be a bit spent, and I was right, we really couldn't expect a great match today. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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