Tag: tournamentnews

APG provides consultancy services to 2021 opening week Premier in Abu Dhabi

ABU DHABI, UAE – After Tennis Australia’s announcement to move the first Grand Slam of 2021 to early February due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the WTA scrambled to find a replacement tournament to fill in the first week of 2021 and provide much needed player jobs as well as to fulfill its global broadcast obligations.  That search led them to Abu Dhabi together with the help of Brand Plus, a leading sports agency based out of Dubai, which led to the creation of the Abu Dhabi WTA Women’s Tennis Open. 

APG was contacted by Brand Plus to join the operations team and put the tournament together from scratch within just 3 weeks.  “I believe APG was invited because of our familiarity of the WTA and our hands-on approach in tournament operations”, says Grant Carpio, leading APG consultant to the event.  “It was a hectic 2 weeks running up to the event but in the end it was very rewarding to know that we’ve helped pave the start of a “new normal” WTA tour while operating under the pandemic.”  The collective hard work of all the parties involved created a safe bubble environment between the Abu Dhabi airport, the Fairmont Hotel and the Zayed Sports City International Tennis Center for all tournament players, guests and staff.   

APG steps up its game to bring a Premier tournament safely to Ostrava amid pandemic

OSTRAVA, CZE – The COVID-19 pandemic created unique challenges for the global tennis community as many tournaments in 2020 were forced to cancel including all those in the Asian swing.  APG, together with its partner, Perinvest, joined forces to bring the J&T Banka Ostrava Open to Czech Republic’s thirst most populated city amid the pandemic while prioritizing health and safety for all players, coaches and tournament staff.  The tournament was one of a handful of tournaments on the WTA tour to lead the ‘Return to Play’ under a strict set of COVID-19 protocol.

APG, led by COO Laura Ceccarelli who worked as Tournament Director in Ostrava, served as main operations consultant to the event. “It was a new tournament, and so we started completely from scratch,” said Ceccarelli, “I think that helped us create the perfect COVID environment – not in a super-spreader sort of way, but in the sense that every detail and protocol was accounted for, and knowing that this would be different from any tournament we’d ever encountered in the past.”  The tournament was hailed a success by the WTA as well as from many of the players who competed. 

Read More:

How WTA tournaments kept show on the road in 2020 (wtatennis.com)