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Geneva, 14 December 2023 – With legends of the game saying emotional returns and proficient future stars wanting to make their mark in opposition to established champions, the 2024 tennis season is stuffed with promise. All of it begins at subsequent month’s Australian Open, which can start a day earlier in an historic first for the occasion, working from Sunday 14–Sunday 28 January. Rolex turned Official Timekeeper of the season-opening Grand Slam® match in 2008 as a part of its relationship with tennis that dates again greater than 40 years. Throughout this time the Swiss watchmaker has championed tennis custom and the search for good motion at among the world’s most famous sporting theatres.
Former World No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki is about to proceed her comeback, returning to Melbourne Park – the scene of her maiden Grand Slam® title – for the primary time since having two kids. The 2018 Australian Open winner and a Rolex Testimonee for greater than a decade, Wozniacki says:
“I can’t wait to be again in Australia and to take my household to a spot meaning a lot to me. Lifting the trophy in 2018 is one thing I’ll always remember and the Rolex Daytona I wore that day is a continuing reminder of this unbelievable second. Returning as a mom goes to be a really emotional and unforgettable expertise.”
Fellow members of the Rolex household of Testimonees becoming a member of Wozniacki within the girls’s singles draw embrace new mom and 2016 champion, Angelique Kerber, and four-time Grand Slam® winner, Iga ?wi?tek. The 22-year-old phenomenon arrives in Australia after reclaiming the World No. 1 rating following her spectacular triumph on the 2023 season-ending GNP Seguros WTA Finals Cancun. Within the males’s singles, Jannik Sinner will likely be aiming to take care of his momentum, having reached the ultimate of the Nitto ATP Finals and guided Italy to victory within the Davis Cup, whereas Stéfanos Tsistipás will try to go one higher on the occasion the place he had a spectacular run to the ultimate final January.
Australian Rod Laver, one of many sport’s all-time greats who claimed three of his 11 profession Grand Slam®singles titles at his personal nationwide championships, says:
“Will probably be fascinating to see how the brand new group of gamers go into the competitors and in the event that they’re prepared to just accept their probability to win the large tournaments beneath strain.”
Annually, Laver returns to Melbourne to witness extraordinary shows of technical precision and ability that outline the best ranges of tennis at present and play out on the eponymously named Rod Laver Area. 2024 will mark 55 years for the reason that tennis legend and Rolex Testimonee turned the primary and solely participant within the skilled period to attain the boys’s calendar Grand Slam® – his second general, having achieved the feat as an novice in 1962. Reflecting on this milestone Laver, provides:
“Your profession is all about how effectively you play tournaments and carry out within the essential moments. Trying again at the moment, it felt like the entire sport was evolving and there for the taking. It’s enormously humbling to be within the report books as the one participant to have received the Grand Slam twice. It means an important deal to me.”
As a part of its long-term dedication to tennis, Rolex acknowledges not simply heroes of the previous however these of the current as they push the boundaries of efficiency and human endeavour on court docket. Two such gamers are Carlos Alcaraz and Coco Gauff, who have been each victorious in Grand Slam® tournaments in 2023. In July, Spanish prodigy Alcaraz lifted the boys’s singles trophy at The Championships, Wimbledon, earlier than Gauff received on dwelling soil on the US Open in September to assert her first Grand Slam® title. Gauff says:
“Profitable the US Open was a loopy feeling – one which I had by no means felt earlier than and I don’t assume I’ll ever really feel once more. I had dreamt of profitable a Grand Slam and the second was even higher than I might have ever imagined. For certain, my aim subsequent yr is to win one other, and to symbolize Rolex and ladies’s tennis on the identical time is a large honour. I’m at all times wanting ahead to the following problem and may’t wait to return to Melbourne as a Grand Slam champion.”
The Australian Open has roots relationship again to 1905, and transitioned from grass courts to arduous courts in 1988. The forthcoming version marks the beginning of Rolex’s assist for the 2024 worldwide tennis calendar, from the 4 Grand Slam® tournaments to main 1000 occasions on each the boys’s and ladies’s excursions. With the best achievements usually decided by the best margins, the tennis world eagerly awaits a brand new yr filled with potential and new tales, because the gamers return from the low season reinvigorated and able to get their campaigns off to the very best begin.
ROLEX TESTIMONEES WHO HAVE WON THE AUSTRALIAN OPEN
Rod Laver (1960*, 1962*, 1969)
Chris Evert (1982, 1984)
Stefan Edberg (1985, 1987)
Jim Courier (1992, 1993)
Roger Federer (2004, 2006, 2007, 2010, 2017, 2018)
Justine Henin (2004)
Li Na (2014)
Angelique Kerber (2016)
Caroline Wozniacki (2018)
* Beforehand generally known as Australian Championships within the novice period.
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