The 26-year-old emphasized the merits of the previous tournament director Sandra Reichel, who has been in charge since 2019. Under Reichel’s leadership, the tournament developed back to what the Hamburgers would like, Zverev continued. Reichel reacted visibly moved to the words of the newly crowned winner and wiped the tears from his face.
This year, MatchMaker, a company run by Sandra Reichel and her father Peter-Michael Reichel, organized the tournament in the Hanseatic city for the last time as a combined event with the WTA 250 tournament. However, the DTB, under the leadership of President Dietloff von Arnim, granted the license for the men’s event to Tennium last year for the period from 2024 onwards.
“We want to go down a path with a new marketer that will further develop the tournament,” said von Arnim on Sunday. Petkovic, MatchMaker’s tournament ambassador, expressed her incomprehension. “As an association, the German Tennis Association should also see other aspects than just economic ones,” said the former world number ninth: “In times of diversity and equality, I find it amazing that such a strong economic, but also symbolic product is torn apart.”
Sandra Reichel announced talks with Tennium about the future of the two Hamburg tennis tournaments. MatchMaker is also confident that it will be able to raise the women’s tournament to a WTA 500 level in the coming years. “This application is now in the process,” said Chairman Peter-Michael Reichel. For 2025 he could “actually almost guarantee that we will make it”.
2023-07-31 08:45:54
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