At the same time, the ATP, the governing body of the men’s professional tennis circuit, announced its approval of the transfer of the Suisse Open Gstaad tournament rights from Jacques Hermenjat to the Swiss Open Gstaad AG, an entity equally owned by the Gemeinde of Saanen and Swiss Tennis Association. The decision is the end result of months of legal wrangling between former tournament director, Hermenjat, and the Gemeinde, who had previously agreed a price for the sale of the tournament rights only to have Hermenjat continue shopping the rights until he reached a second deal with Swiss Tennis. Swiss Open Gstaad AG will pay SFr 3.5 million to Hermenjat as well as a 10% transfer fee to the ATP. Total legal costs of involved parties (Hermenjat, Gemeinde and Swiss Tennis) are said to amount approximately to SFr 500,000.
With the green light from China, preparations for the Allianz Suisse Open Gstaad 2007 can finally begin. Among the changes for next year's event will be that the “best-of-five” set final will be replaced by a “best-of-three” sets match. The reason? To ease the physical strain on players as well as to facilitate TV scheduling. This change will also affect the 10 other finals including Barcelona, Basel, Kitzbuhel, Stuttgard and Vienna. It will also affect the Masters Series that includes Hamburg, Madrid, Monte Carlo, Paris and Rome. Other ATP-mandated changes include the testing of the round robin format, larger prize purses, more use of the Hawkeye video umpire system, and Sunday starts to counter against rain delays, something that will come in very handy with all the rain-delays we tend to see in Gstaad in June!
At the same time, the ATP, the governing body of the men’s professional tennis circuit, announced its approval of the transfer of the Suisse Open Gstaad tournament rights from Jacques Hermenjat to the Swiss Open Gstaad AG, an entity equally owned by the Gemeinde of Saanen and Swiss Tennis Association. The decision is the end result of months of legal wrangling between former tournament director, Hermenjat, and the Gemeinde, who had previously agreed a price for the sale of the tournament rights only to have Hermenjat continue shopping the rights until he reached a second deal with Swiss Tennis. Swiss Open Gstaad AG will pay SFr 3.5 million to Hermenjat as well as a 10% transfer fee to the ATP. Total legal costs of involved parties (Hermenjat, Gemeinde and Swiss Tennis) are said to amount approximately to SFr 500,000.
With the green light from China, preparations for the Allianz Suisse Open Gstaad 2007 can finally begin. Among the changes for next year's event will be that the “best-of-five” set final will be replaced by a “best-of-three” sets match. The reason? To ease the physical strain on players as well as to facilitate TV scheduling. This change will also affect the 10 other finals including Barcelona, Basel, Kitzbuhel, Stuttgard and Vienna. It will also affect the Masters Series that includes Hamburg, Madrid, Monte Carlo, Paris and Rome. Other ATP-mandated changes include the testing of the round robin format, larger prize purses, more use of the Hawkeye video umpire system, and Sunday starts to counter against rain delays, something that will come in very handy with all the rain-delays we tend to see in Gstaad in June!
