Roger Brennwald takes stock: “The new era has not yet fully reached the audience”
Tournament director Roger Brennwald said at his annual press conference that he was more than satisfied with the 2024 edition and that it wouldn’t be a big deal if the current world number 1 never came to Basel. The 78-year-old also explains why the Swiss Indoors still doesn’t have a title sponsor.
What do you think of the final match between Ben Shelton and Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard?
Roger Brennwald: Nobody could have predicted this final. I can’t remember anyone serving as strongly in this tournament as Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard did this week. I have to admit that I can neither pronounce this name nor did I know it before this week. On the other side is Ben Shelton, the outstanding figure of the tournament so far. For me, his games against Arthur Fils and Andrej Rublev were the highlights of this year.
What do you think of the new competition from the Swiss Indoors, a show tournament that took place in Saudi Arabia the week before your tournament and attracted the world’s best to the desert with $15 million in prize money?
Competition actually stimulates business. Nevertheless, I want to emphasize that I am not a fan of exhibitions. We have been able to assert ourselves on the international stage again and again over the years. According to my latest information, this tournament will no longer take place. Nevertheless, Saudi Arabia took away our opportunity to sign a top-five player. We have to deal with that, Basel is not Wimbledon. We never claim to be the best. Our credo is to get the best out of our possibilities.
63,200 spectators came to the hall this year. Are you satisfied with a utilization rate of 86.7 percent?
Overall, we have a higher number of viewers compared to the last two years. We are once again taking a step forward. The hall is only sold out on the final Sunday, but on three days we were close to the maximum capacity of 8,100 spectators. The new era of Swiss Indoors has not yet fully reached the audience.
Compared to previous years, there are more tennis fans and fewer people who are “only” interested in the figureheads of the sport?
We organized a tournament for Swiss youth players in the run-up to the Swiss Indoors. The best regional players in the country took part. Henry Bernet, who won the tournament, received a wild card for qualification. Around this tournament we distributed 3000 entries to the community (club presidents, tennis teachers, interclub champions and others). This is a test run for us, but we see it as an investment to promote the tennis community.
Why hasn’t there been a title sponsor for fourteen years?
We had to give up our long-standing collaboration with Davidoff due to the advertising restrictions for tobacco producers contre cœur. Since then I have never looked for a title sponsor. This gives us two advantages: On the one hand, Swiss Indoors has developed into a brand, and all of our partners are more or less equal. Of course, a new title sponsor could attract many more partners. We can certainly talk about it in the future, but the topic is not a top priority for me.
Why does the rival tournament in Vienna pay more prize money than Basel?
I don’t understand why the ATP 500 tournaments pay different amounts of prize money. These things are unchangeable. Prize money is based on the history of a tournament and many other factors that I don’t understand. (Laughs.)
Roger Brennwald cannot understand why different amounts of prize money are paid out at the same tournament level.
