ATP, String Manufacturer Pacific Enter Partnership

Pacific to be official string and grip provider through 2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Alison S. Kim
akim@atptennis.com

03/28/07 - Monte-Carlo, Monaco – The ATP, the governing body of the men’s professional tennis circuit, today announced its new partnership with tennis string manufacturer Pacific Entermark GmbH. Under the three-year agreement, which ends December 31, 2009, the German-based international corporation will become the official string and grip provider for the ATP.
The partnership caters to the trend among ATP professionals to combine polyester and natural gut into a hybrid blend, giving players the best characteristics of both strings in their racquet. Pacific specializes in the manufacturing of natural gut tennis strings, which absorbs the impact of the ball better than synthetic strings, providing injury prevention as well as best playability. Through the terms of the agreement, ATP players will have access to Pacific’s wide range of high quality products.
“John McEnroe played Pacific Natural Gut Strings throughout his career and won Wimbledon and other Grand Slam titles numerous times with them,” said Pacific CEO Marcus Schwarz. “Pacific used its experience from Natural Gut Strings on the professional tour to develop high performing synthetic strings in the ’90s and since then further developed their range of strings to the highest standards of professional racquet sports. With the amount of experience gathered over a quarter of a century in professional tennis our natural gut string was rated No. 1 in the USA and our synthetic Poly Force synthetic string was the Tennis Magazine test winner in Germany for 2006, it is only natural that Pacific decided to partner with the ATP.”
Etienne de Villiers, ATP Executive Chairman and President, said: “Player performance and health are two crucial components for such an agreement, and Pacific has a proven track record of success in both. The ATP wants to ensure that our players continue to perform to the best of their abilities throughout the duration of the tennis season, and one of the essential steps we can take to help achieve that end is to arm them with the best equipment possible.”

About Pacific
PACIFIC was founded in 1972 on the west coast of New Zealand as a manufacturer of Natural Gut tennis string. Since then PACIFIC Natural Gut has become the industry standard to which all other tennis string is compared. PACIFIC Natural Gut was made most famous by John McEnroe who won Wimbledon 3 times playing with Pacific Tournament Pro Natural Gut. Still today, Pacific is used in all Grand Slam Tournaments. Pacific’s international success is not limited to Natural Gut. Synthetic strings, and grips are manufactured to the demand of professional tennis players.

About ATP
With 63 tournaments in 30 countries, the ATP showcases the finest athletes competing in the world’s most exciting venues. From Australia to Europe and the Americas to Asia, the stars of the ATP Rankings and the top tandems in the Stanford ATP Doubles Race contend for prestigious titles at ATP Masters Series and other ATP tournaments. The season's top eight singles players and doubles teams earn coveted berths at the elite Tennis Masters Cup, the circuit-ending championship held in China. For more information, please visit www.ATPtennis.com
Media Contacts
Pacific: Ullrich Afini-Awani, uafiniawani@pacific.com, +49 715 398 39572
ATP: Nicola Arzani, narzani@atptennis.com

Company Website
www.atptennis.com
Company Profile
Tenniswire.org/companies/atp_tennis/index.html