Wimbledon Champion Joins World No. 9 James Blake As Top Players Committed To The Event
NEW HAVEN, CT -- World No. 3 Amelie Mauresmo, the defending Wimbledon champion, has become the first female player to commit to Pilot Pen Tennis presented by Schick, a US Open Series event on the ATP and Sony Ericsson WTA Tour to be held August 17-25, 2007 at the Connecticut Tennis Center at Yale, it was announced today by Anne Worcester, tournament director.
Mauresmo, who joins World No. 9 and 2005 Pilot Pen Tennis men's champion James Blake as the first players to commit to the tournament, will be coming to New Haven for the eighth time. She has had tremendous success at the tournament reaching the quarterfinals five times (1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2006), the semifinal (2003) and the final (2005).
"We are delighted to have Amelie join the Pilot Pen field early," said Worcester. "As she is the defending Wimbledon champion, it is especially appropriate to announce her entry on the day that Wimbledon is announcing equal prize money levels for women for the first time in Wimbledon history."
Mauresmo is coming off a career year in 2006 in which she held the world No. 1 ranking for a significant portion of the year; won her first career major at the Australian Open and followed that by winning her second in July at Wimbledon; and won two titles on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour at Paris and Antwerp.
This year, she continued her success at Antwerp winning her third title there and with it a diamond-studded racquet. She also reached the final of Dubai, before withdrawing from her next few tournaments due to acute appendicitis. She has since recovered and will return to the tour in the coming months.
For tickets, how to become a volunteer, or more information about the tournament, please call the Pilot Pen Tennis Box Office, 888/99-PILOT, 203/776-7331, or log on to www.pilotpentennis.com.
About Pilot Pen Tennis presented by Schick
The 2007 Pilot Pen presented by Schick (www.pilotpentennis.com), a US Open Series event on the ATP and Sony Ericsson WTA Tour, will be held August 17-25 at the Connecticut Tennis Center at Yale.
The Pilot Pen is the first ever combined men's and women's summer tournament leading into the US Open. Some of the biggest names in men's and women's tennis played in the 2006 Pilot Pen such as ATP players James Blake, Nikolay Davydenko (defending champion), Marcos Baghdatis, Feliciano Lopez and David Ferrer and Sony Ericsson WTA Tour players Justine Henin (defending women's champion), Lindsay Davenport, Amelie Mauresmo, Elena Dementieva and Daniela Hantuchova. The 2006 Pilot Pen drew 100,000 spectators and was televised nationally for 20 hours on ESPN2 and CBS Sports and in over 180 countries worldwide.
About the US Open Series
The US Open Series, launched in 2004, is the cohesive, six-week summer tennis season of 10 North American tournaments linked to the US Open. The Series has produced record attendance, TV viewership and live broadcast hours for the sport. In total, the US Open Series events -- including the US Open -- generated a record 1.6 million attendees, 137 million TV viewers and 27.8 million website visits making it the strongest summertime property in sports. Ana Ivanovic and Andy Roddick are the defending US Open Series champions.