Revolutionary technology ‘Hawk-Eye Officiating’ will be used for the first time ever at a major men’s tennis tournament. It makes its debut appearance as the “Eagle Eye by Barclays” at this year’s Masters Tennis tournament at the Royal Albert Hall (29th November to 4th December).
Barclays is sponsoring the new Eagle Eye at The Masters Tennis, naming it after their world-famous Eagle crest and hoping to make it a favourite with players and spectators alike.
The technology, which uses cameras to track the ball’s trajectory and sends information to a virtual reality machine, has been used at Grand Slam and ATP Tennis Masters Series events for the past three years, but only on television as an analytical tool for the commentary teams.
Now, following ITF (International Tennis Federation) approval on October 12th, it will be used to aid umpires with disputed line calls, something that may add a new dimension to four-time champion John McEnroe’s vociferous objections on-court at the Royal Albert Hall.
Paul Hawkins, founder of the Hawk-Eye system said: “Calling lines is a tough job – everyone wants it to be the players’ ability that decides the outcome of a match and now Hawk-Eye can help make that happen.”
Masters favourite John McEnroe said: “I’m all for it, it’s about time it was introduced. Once again the Champions Tour is leading the way in innovations in the tennis circuit.”
The Masters Tennis is the final tournament on the world-wide ATP Delta Tour of Champions and players must have qualified to obtain their place in London. The top ten players in the Stanford Financial Champions Tour Rankings after all events on the Tour are complete will qualify automatically for London. The field will increase to 12 with the addition of two wild cards, with a $100,000 prize on offer for the winner of The Masters Tennis.
Contact
Vicky Carling, The Masters Tennis Press Office
T: +44 (0) 20 7351 7499 E: vcarling@quintusgroup.com
The Masters Tennis Ticket hotline: +44 (0) 870 458 3661
http://www.themasterstennis.com/
Barclays
Barclays PLC is one of the world’s largest global financial services providers primarily offering banking, investment banking and investment management services. Present in over 60 countries, Barclays is a leading provider of global services to over 20 million customers and employs more than 110,500 people worldwide. With over 300 years of history and expertise in banking, Barclays Plc has six major divisions:
· UK Banking, delivers banking products and services to over 14 million personal customers and 762, 000 businesses in the UK.
· Barclaycard, is one of the largest global credit card companies with 14.9 million credit card customers around the world.
· Barclays Capital, is a leading global investment bank which provides large corporate, institutional and government clients with solutions to their financing and risk management needs.
· Barclays Global Investors, is one of the world’s largest asset managers and a leading provider of investment management products and services.
· Barclays Wealth Management has over £74 billion of customer funds under management
· International Retail and Commercial Banking – Provides a range of banking services, including current accounts, savings, investments, mortgages and loans, as well as services to corporate customers across Spain, France, Portugal, Italy, Africa and the Middle East. Barclays operates over 800 international branches under its own name. It is also responsible for Barclays stake in FirstCaribbean International Bank and Barclays majority stake in Absa, South Africa’s largest retail bank, with over seven million customers. Also see the Absa website http://www.absa.co.za/.
Barclays is investing £87million in UK sports over the next three years in the Barclays Premiership & Barclays Spaces for Sports:
Barclays is title sponsor of the Premiership (£57m), the most popular domestic football league in the world. The Barclays Premiership is watched in over 195 countries, with a regular global audience of 517million.
Barclays Spaces for Sports (£30m) will create more than 300 local sustainable sports facilities in communities across the UK in the next three years. The programme is a partnership between Barclays, the Football foundation and Groundwork.