PERTH, January 8, 2018 (Press Release)
World No.2 Roger Federer and Belinda Bencic have won Switzerland’s third Hopman Cup title after defeating Alexander Zverev and Angelique Kerber of Germany 2-1.
After eight days of world class tennis action, a record total tournament attendance of 106,424 visited Perth Arena with a further 5,688 attending Federer’s open practice session with Australia’s Thanasi Kokkinakis.
This is the tournament’s final word.
On-court action
· Switzerland’s Roger Federer and Belinda Bencic defeated Alexander Zverev and Angelique Kerber to win Switzerland’s third Hopman Cup in history and their first title in 17 years
· Federer last won the Hopman Cup in 2001 with Martina Hingis
· Federer and Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario are the only two players to win the Hopman Cup 12 years or more apart
· Eight countries including Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, USA, Japan, Russia, Canada and Australia were represented in 2018
· The field included five current top 10 players including world No.2Roger Federer, world No.4 Alexander Zverev, world No.7 David Goffin, world No.8 Jack Sock and world No.10 Coco Vandeweghe
· Eight players returned to the Hopman Cup in 2018, including six from last year: Roger Federer – 2001, 2002, 2017; Daria Gavrilova – 2016, 2017; Jack Sock – 2016, 2017; Coco Vandeweghe – 2017; Alexander Zverev – 2016, 2017; Belinda Bencic – 2017; Vasek Pospisil – 2015 and Eugenie Bouchard – 2014, 2015
· For the first time in 16 years the Mastercard Hopman Cup featured a Japanese team
· Eight players made their Hopman Cup debut: Yuichi Sugita, Naomi Osaka, Angelique Kerber, David Goffin, Elise Mertens, Karen Khachanov, Thanasi Kokkinakis and Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova
· Two former Hopman Cup champions were present in 2018: Roger Federer (2001), Daria Gavrilova (2016)
· The field included three Olympic medallists: Jack Sock (Rio 2016 mixed doubles gold, men’s doubles bronze), Roger Federer (Beijing 2008 men’s doubles gold, London 2012 men’s singles silver), Angelique Kerber (Rio 2016 women’s singles silver)
· Jack Sock (USA) clocked the fastest men’s serve of the tournament at221km/h
· Coco Vandeweghe (USA) recorded the fastest women’s serve at190 km/h.
Off-court action
· During the event the world’s best tennis players have had the chance to experience various parts of Perth, Western Australia:
· Roger Federer travelled by helicopter to visit Rottnest Island. On the island he had a selfie with a Quokka, visited Parakeet Bay before boarding a boat to cook crayfish on a BBQ
· Angelique Kerber and Alexander Zverev went surfing at Trigg Beach
· Daria Gavrilova and Thanasi Kokkinakis went jet skiing at Hillarys Boat Harbour
· Eugenie Bouchard and Vasek Pospisil went swimming at Perth’s City Beach
· Thrillseeker Coco Vandeweghe took a skydive over Rottnest Island
· Naomi Osaka and Yuichi Sugita hit tennis balls while standing on the roof of Perth Arena overlooking the City of Perth
· David Goffin and Elise Mertens fed kangaroos, met wombats and patted koalas at Caversham Wildlife Park, as did Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova and Karen Khachanov
· The Mastercard Hopman Cup New Year’s Eve Gala at Crown Perth’s Grand Ballroom was attended by more than 450 guests and saw all 16 players walk the red carpet. The event featured interviews with teams from Switzerland, Germany, USA and Australia as well as an interview with Pat Cash reflecting on 30 years of the tournament. The night included a special performance by the Natalie Bassingthwaite frontedRogue Traders.
Attendance
· A record 106,424 fans attended the Mastercard Hopman Cup, thelargest tournament attendance in the event’s history
· An additional 5,688 fans visited Perth Arena to see Roger Federer’s open practice session
· Thursday 4 January’s night session between Switzerland and USA saw the event’s largest session attendance in the Hopman Cup’s 30 year history with 14,029 attendees packing into Perth Arena to watch Belinda Bencic and Roger Federer defeat Coco Vandeweghe and Jack Sock
· The 2018 tournament saw the three highest attended sessions in the history of the Hopman Cup – 13,943 (Tues 2 Jan), 14,029 (Wed 4 Jan) plus the largest Hopman Cup final attendance of 14,008 (Sat 6 Jan)
· Famous faces in the crowd included former Australian Davis Cup captain Neale Fraser, former Fremantle Docker Matthew Pavlich, West Coast Eagle Nic Naitanui and Powderfinger’s Darren Middleton.
Media and broadcast
· More than 85 print, radio and broadcast media provided extensive media coverage of the event to media outlets around Australia and internationally including Switzerland, Belgium, Germany and France
· The tournament was broadcast live and free across Australia by theSeven Network for the fifth consecutive year
· Tennis Australia managed the host broadcast of the tournament for the fourth straight year. Commentators for 2018 included Alicia Molik, Mark Petchey, Louise Plemming, Peter Marcato, John Fitzgerald and Seven’s own Basil Zempilas
· Internationally, the tournament was broadcast to more than 200 territories by 15 different broadcast partners
· Broadcasts included China (IQIYI, CCTV) and Japan (WOWOW), along with Europe (Eurosport), Germany’s ZDF, Switzerland’s SSR SRG,Tennis Channel in the US, Africa (SuperSport), Latin America and the Caribbean (ESPN).
Digital and social media
· The HopmanCup.com website had 520,358 users and 1.6 million visits during the event period
· As of 7 January, @hopmancup on Twitter grew by 20 per cent to29.4K followers and generated 6.5 million impressions and 354,152 video views
· The Hopman Cup Facebook page grew by 22.91 per cent to 41,790 followers and featured a variety of performance updates, event colour and behind-the-scenes content
· The @hopmancup Instagram grew by 204 per cent to 15.2k followers by 7 January. Instagram stories was a daily feature offering fans a more organic experience of the event
· Best performing Twitter post was an image of 2016 v 2017 Federer serve, which generated 631 retweets, 3.1k likes and 345,224 impressions. See it here:https://twitter.com/hopmancup/statuses/947138409847328768
· Best performing Facebook post was our ‘Team Painting Challenge’, which generated a reach of 1.6 million and over 12k reactions. It was shared over 400 times and most notably by Roger Federer. See it here:https://www.facebook.com/hopmancup/videos/1175335109236415/
· The best performing Instagram post was a split-screen featuring the 2018 finalists embracing which generated 4,317 likes and 100 comments. See it here: https://www.instagram.com/p/BdkqCyNjqeh/?taken-by=hopmancup
- The Hopman Cup YouTube channel generated almost 792,000 viewsover the past seven days, with “Team Switzerland: How well do you know each other?” the best performing post with almost 57,000 views.
New initiatives
· Brinkhaus Jewellers designed two iconic tennis ball trophies for the winning team
· World class automotive brand Jaguar signed on as the tournament’s new official vehicle partner
· Coopers joined the Hopman Cup family as the official beer and cider partner
· Lululemon signed on as the tournament’s official athletic apparel partner
· Former Hopman Cup champions and players congratulated the tournament on reaching its 30 year milestone in a tribute video
· $5 kids tickets continued in 2018, offering junior fans the opportunity to watch some of the world’s best compete at all day sessions
· DJ Boston Switch played at all night sessions.
A total of
· 3,240 Wilson tennis balls were used throughout the Mastercard Hopman Cup while 220 racquets were restrung for players
· 1,500 towels plus 120 personalised embroidered player towels were used
· 66 ballkids aged 12-15 made up the 2018 Mastercard Hopman Cup squad
· Matches were officiated by 32 linespeople, four chair umpires andone referee from around Australia and the world
· Players were transported by a fleet of 16 Jaguar F Pace cars and two shuttles
· 9,520 bottles of water were consumed by players, tournament staff, volunteers and officials.
Community tennis and fan engagement
· The Hopman Cup trophy and the tournament’s brand new mascot‘Hoppy’ visited 39 schools throughout the month of November and gave out 800 high fives. More than 4,200 students saw the Hopman Cup trophy
· Fifty-eight tennis clubs were involved in the Have A Hit On Usinitiative offering all Hopman Cup ticketholders one hour of free court hire at participating clubs in WA
· Five thousand children visited the Tennis West activation area which included two Tennis Hot Shots courts and Hit The Target inflatable at Perth Arena
· More than180 Tennis Hot Shots participants had an on court experience at the Mastercard Hopman Cup with 33 participants taking part in the coin toss initiative
· More than 1100 people dived into the Bankwest Mastercard ball pit
· One fan won two flights to Dubai as part of the Emirates Ball Flightpromotion
· Nova Boy mascot enjoyed a dance with the DJ on Nova’s New Year’s Day
· Three brand new Jaguar cars were on display for patrons to see up close, including the Australian reveal of the E Pace
· Two HIIT sessions were organised by lululemon for over 70 attendees on the Hopman Cup practice court
· Thousands of fans held yoga poses between matches at the Hopman Cup to win lululemon gift cards
· Thousands of fans enjoyed a taste of summer in a glass at The Garden Bar by Aperol Spritz and Coopers
· More than 85,000 hand waver country flags handed out to patrons as part of City of Perth’s scream for their team promotion
· The Queen’s Baton visited the Hopman Cup to mark the start of the relay from 26 January around Australia leading into the Commonwealth Games in April.
