The tennis tournament at Rothenbaum in Hamburg will demand a lot of work and investment from the future licence holder Peter-Michael Reichel.The 64-year-old Austrian prophesied this in an interview with the Hamburger Abendblatt.
During his visit in July, Reichel said,”he had already gotten a little frightened at what I saw there”:”There is a lot to be done here.
On the one hand, Alexander Zverev, for example, would be a wish-player and, on the other hand, he would be interested in designing the facility,”said Reichel.
Starting in 2019, Reichel will take over the license from former host and tournament director Michael Stich for an initial period of five years,”We will meet him as soon as possible, if he so wishes, and then we will sort everything out,”Reichel announced.Reichel considers it “actually unthinkable”that he might be joining the Rothenbaum tree as early as 2018, a year earlier than planned.
He is, however,”convinced that the Rothenbaum can once again be developed into an important sporting event,”said the Austrian, who organizes the women’s tournaments in Linz and Nuremberg with his agency Matchmaker.His daughter Sandra Reichel is the Tournament Director in Linz as well as at the Nürnberger Versicherungscup.In Hamburg, Reichel would also like to “take part in a women’s tournament to extend the entire event to two weeks”.
Reichel said:”Theoretically, this could be our Nuremberg license, theoretically speaking, it could also be a new, very theoretically, my Linz license.” He is absolutely convinced that larger investments in the Rothenbaum will pay off at some point.
The first step is to clarify with the ATP players’ association “what is possible in the future, as far as the date and surface is concerned”.At the moment, it is planned to “align the tournament on sand and also where it is now”.Of course, the topic “Hard court in summer” triggers fantasies, because after Wimbledon the players already have the hard court tour in North America in their heads.If the ATP were to play along, it would be worth considering,”said Reichel.
We have clearly stated in our offer that we do not commit ourselves to Hamburg, but to Germany as a location, since the DTB is our partner,”said Reichel.One has to wait and see how the forthcoming talks with the city will develop:”Both the club on the Alster river as the main tenant and administrator of the facility and the city are to be asked what they want in the future, in which direction the sports city of Hamburg wants to develop.
However, he did not want subsidies from the city baggage, but “that the city should invest in its location marketing.Is that what Hamburg wants?Does the city want to support a tournament that is present all over the world, will be shown on television in 130 to 150 countries and will be represented in media coverage practically all over the world?”?
Reichel claims that he does not know the plans of the club on the Alster for the demolition of the Rothenbaum Stadium and the construction of a new multifunctional arena.In principle, however, he is “very positive about any investment in a modern, future-oriented plant”.
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