At the 2016 Citi Open on Wednesday, I conducted a personal best 5 one-on-one interviews. My friend Victor and I hustled, constantly checking scores, and waited by the “Mixed Zone” stage for the players to appear after their matches. While I didn’t get to watch much of the matches, I really enjoy asking questions and picking the brains of the best professional tennis players in the world.
For those who don’t know how I am able to get these interviews, it is pretty simple: for the ATP players, I have to submit a request via email to an ATP rep. On the WTA side, I have to fill out a sheet with some basic information about myself and the player and submit it to the media desk.
Then, the ATP/WTA rep lets the players know after their match that they have an interview request. The rep will lead the players to the area where interviews are conducted. Special thanks to Josh and Edward (the ATP reps) and the WTA reps for all their help!
If there are too many requests for a particular player, or the player is very highly ranked, Sheena, Molly, Cindy, and all the other awesome people at the media tent (shout out to Link Strategic Partners) will coordinate a press conference with the ATP/WTA reps for that particular player.
There have only been a couple times where I haven’t been able to get an interview that I have requested or a press conference. Obviously, targeting lesser-well known players yields a higher success rate. And requesting a player win-or-lose can be risky since the player who loses may not want to be interviewed. But most of the time, the player is gracious enough to grant the request anyway.
I have had a lot of fun interviewing the pros so far, and since I had a bunch of interviews yesterday, I figured I’d compile them into a post. Let me know if you have any other questions or suggestions about my interviews. Enjoy!
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